Institutional Transition & The Peasants's Income

In China, peasant's income is relative to two properties—farm and human resource. These two resources are regulated by two system—land tenure system and two-dimension household register management system.The farmers' income in China has been increasing very slowly and deteriorating significantly relative to urban population in recent years. This actuality has also drawn great attention. The government has already taken many policies and measures to adjust farmers' income, but the outcomes were almost unsatisfactory. This paper will study the problem of farmers' income from a new angle--land tenure system. This paper argues that land tenure system is the most essential factor that restricts the development of rural economics. Almost all countries and areas rely on the perfect and modernization of the land tenure system to develop their agriculture and rural economics. In China, the existing communal land tenure system with many problems and deficiencies badly invades farmers' land rights, so it is a big obstacle to increase farmers' income.One:Much research is being carried out in the areas of farmers' income, but there are too little that got hold of the key point. So up to now, there is no effective approach to this difficult problem. Because of this actuality, the source of income will be made clear at first in this paper, it concluded that the property rights determine the income. Obviously, his principle is apply to the rural economics, so the farming land tenure system will determine farmers' income. This point can be abstracted from the compare of the twice system reforms in rural China. And from the compare, we can also find out that the more clear the property right, the more farmers can increase their income easily. Compared to collective farming, Household responsibility system has made great progress in this area, It brought a rapid increase in agriculture production and farmers' income. The rate of growth fell, however, in the late 1980s. Associated with the new land tenure system have emerged a host of problems, so the further reform is needed. It is argued here that the clearest land rights are likely to provide a solution to the farmers' income problem.Two:Strict two-dimension household register management system that cuts a part in urban and rural areas results from the planned economic system of our country. During nearly half a century, two-dimension household register system of our country has taken sharpened rapidly. However, the two-dimension household register management system has already been recognized as the greatest obstacle of the urbanization and the modernization of our country. Undoubtedly, the current household register system must be reformed. It regulated strictly that permanent residence were prohibited from moving to other places; especially the rural population's moving from rural to urban area were restrained. It is the ultimate goal of the householder reform to implement the free moving of all citizens. This text attempts to analyze the history of developments of the household register and the influence of which carried out to limit the income of peasants.