Research On The Mechanism Of Heterogeneous Farmers’ Land Transfer Behavior Under The Incentive Of Property Rights System

Property rights are the core issue of land systems and policies,and the foundation and prerequisite for rural land transfer.A series of policy measures carried out at the national level have,to a certain extent,increased farmers’ income and optimized the allocation of land resources.Nevertheless,insecure land property rights are still an important driver of slowing down the rate of land transfer,insecure farmers’ income and inefficient land use.How to optimize the existing land property rights system has become an urgent issue to be addressed.In addition,farmers are the most direct stakeholders of the land property rights system reform and the most extensive subjects of the land transfer market,and their behaviors are not only motivated by the property rights system,but also the result of the complex system of land transfer.Such a combination of external and internal environment drives farmers to make differentiated decisions,and the behavior of heterogeneous farmers profoundly affects the process of agricultural development in China.Studies have explored the impact of property rights system reform on farmers’ land transfer behavior,but not enough attention has been paid to heterogeneous farmers and their behavioral mechanisms.In terms of research methods,scholars mostly use static econometric analysis and lack research on the dynamics of land transfer,which makes it difficult to portray the nonlinear process of farm household interaction.In view of this,this paper firstly analyzed the behavioral mechanism of farmers’ participation in land transfer under the property rights incentive,and built a mechanism framework of "property rights incentive-transfer willingness-transfer behavior".Secondly,based on the theoretical analysis,we use a Probit econometric model to test the effect of property rights incentives on heterogeneous farmers’ willingness to transfer their land by combining the data of China Household Database 2015.Moreover,the possible endogeneity problem of the model is discussed using the IV-Probit instrumental variable approach,and the robustness of the econometric model is tested.Again,a land transfer model based on the attributes and behavioral rules of farmers’ subjects was established to simulate the land transfer system of village A in the central region of China.From the second time,combining with database data,different property rights scenarios in 2015 and 2017 were constructed by adjusting the simulation model parameter changes to reveal the behavioral mechanism of land transfer of farmers under property rights incentives.Finally,the full paper is summarized to draw out the research results and make policy recommendations.The main work of this study and its findings are as follows:1)Theoretical analysis of the mechanism of farmers’ participation in land transfer behavior under the property rights incentive.Guided by property rights theory,farmer behavior theory and complex adaptive system theory,this paper takes farmers’ willingness as the starting point and points out that property rights incentives affect farmers’ land transfer behavior by influencing farmers’ willingness to transfer land.Based on this,this paper integrates "property rights incentive-willingness to transfer-transfer behavior" into the same mechanism framework.Theoretical analysis shows that the change of property rights will change the "intensity","length" and "breadth" of land property rights,thus affecting farmers’ willingness to transfer.Based on the willingness to transfer,farmers make differentiated behaviors under the constraints of land quality and moderate scale of operation needs,transaction scope,and transaction price.2)Econometric analysis of the effect of property rights incentives on farmers’ willingness to transfer their land.This paper tests whether there is a significant difference between property rights incentives on farmers’ willingness to transfer their land by using the variable of land titling as a proxy for incentives for change in the agricultural land titling system.The econometric analysis shows that in terms of willingness to transfer,land titling at the national level and in the western region significantly and positively affects farmers’ willingness to transfer their land at the 1%and 5% confidence levels,respectively;in terms of willingness to transfer,only land titling in the eastern region significantly and positively affects farmers’ willingness to transfer their land at the 5% confidence level;the potential endogeneity problem of the model tends to underestimate the positive impact of land titling on farmers’ willingness to transfer their land.The potential endogeneity problem of the model tends to underestimate the positive impact of land titling on farmers’ land transfer decisions.The marginal effect of land titling on willingness to transfer increases from 0.094 to 0.436 after solving the endogeneity problem,and the model remains robust after testing in different ways.3)Simulation analysis of farmers’ land transfer behavior mechanism under property rights incentive.On the basis of willingness,this paper divides farmers into those who are willing to transfer in,those who are willing to transfer out,and those who do not participate in the transfer.Thus,an Agent-based farmland transfer model(AFTM)is established to investigate the behavioral mechanism of farmers’ participation in land transfer through simulation analysis.The results of the simulation analysis show that,in terms of land quality preference and optimal operation scale,farmers’ preference for land quality negatively affects their participation in land transfer.The moderate operation scale of the simulated villages is about 42 mu,and the higher the value of the optimal operation scale,the higher the land transfer rate.Regarding the transaction range,the transaction search range of farmers in the simulated villages ranged from 230 to 322 meters.The larger the transaction information search range within the ability of farmers,the smaller the transaction cost of information asymmetry.As for the transaction price,the equalization of the expected transaction price or the large difference between the expected transaction price and the expected transaction price discouraged farmers from participating in land transfer.The standard deviation of transaction prices jumped in the interval [800,1000],and the average transaction prices showed an asymmetric "U" shape relationship with the land transfer rate.Based on the above conclusions,this paper makes the following suggestions: first,strengthen the "strength" of property rights.We should make efforts in the areas of authority,reasonableness and consensuality,continue to maintain high intensity restrictions on land adjustment,strengthen farmers’ awareness of property rights,and ensure the exclusive exercise of property rights;second,extend the "length" of property rights.The second is to extend the "length" of property rights,taking into account both efficiency and fairness,to extend the contracting period moderately,to adjust the contracting relationship according to local conditions,and to stabilize farmers’ investment and business expectations;the third is to expand the "breadth" of property rights.Improve the land management right mortgage loan mechanism,land transfer price formation mechanism and land subject access and withdrawal mechanism.