Rural Property Rights, Returns to Scale and Contracts

这项建议属于农业主题。我们的研究包括两个项目，研究中国农村土地权利对农民决策和结果的影响。在第一个项目中，我们感兴趣的是，给予农民合法的土地租赁权利可能会如何影响他们改善自身产出的能力。我们认为，在农民以前只有使用权，不能合法从事任何市场土地交易（如出售或租赁）的情况下，租赁权的引入可能会通过两种特定方式改变个人的决定。首先，租赁权可以让农民通过租赁或出租土地来调整和优化他们的土地持有规模。其次，出租土地的能力可能允许农民在不亲自耕种土地的情况下利用其财产的价值。这样，土地出让权可能会缓解劳动力流动的限制，并允许一些农民迁移到城市地区，以寻求不同的劳动力市场机会。我们结合经济学理论和详细的微观数据来分析这个问题。这一研究议程可能对中国和许多其他发展中国家的农业生产力和劳动力流向新的经济机会产生潜在的重要影响，这些国家的私有产权制度还不发达。在第二个项目中，我们感兴趣的是考虑农民在允许其他农民或农业公司使用其土地时签署的合同类型和条款的决定因素。在了解农民对土地承包的选择之后，我们将分析这些承包选择对农业投资和生产力的影响。这一研究议程建立在一些经济理论的基础上，这些理论表明，某些类型的合同可能会导致投资减少和生产率水平降低。例如，农民可能会签订合同，减少他们在土地上进行有利可图投资的动机，以获得针对负面冲击的保险。这一分析利用了发生在中国一些农村地区的土地改革，在那里，农民被允许使用他们的土地作为资本投资，与大型农业公司签订利润分享合同。由于我们的研究项目新颖地关注与农业企业和其他个人的合同，因此我们将收集一个新的数据集，其中包括农民和农业企业关于其农业投资和产出以及双方之间合同的详细信息。这项研究将为农民之间以及农民与农业企业之间的土地市场互动如何影响农村经济增长提供有价值的见解。此外，本项目的研究结果还可为与大规模农业生产兴起相关的经济转型进程提供政策性建议。

This proposal falls under the Agriculture theme.Our research entails two projects that examine the impact of rural land rights on the decisions and outcomes of farmers in China. In the first project, we are interested in how giving farmers the legal right to lease their land may affect their ability to improve their outcomes. There are two particular ways through which we think that individuals' decisions may be changed by the introduction of leasing rights in a context where farmers previously only had use rights and could not legally engage in any market land transaction such as selling or renting. First, leasing rights may allow farmers to adjust and optimize the size of their land-holdings by renting in or renting out land. Second, the ability to lease out land may allow farmers to leverage the value of their property without working the land themselves. In this way, land leasing rights may alleviate constraints on labor mobility and allow some farmers to migrate to urban areas to pursue different labor market opportunities. We combine economic theory and detailed micro-level data to analyze this question. This research agenda can have potentially important implications for agricultural productivity and the flow of labor towards new economic opportunities both in China and in many other developing countries where institutions that enable private property rights are underdeveloped. In the second project, we are interested in thinking about the determinants of the types and the terms of the contracts that farmers sign when allowing other farmers or agricultural firms to use their land. After understanding the choices made by farmers regarding land contracts, we will analyze the impact of these contract choices on agricultural investment and productivity. This research agenda builds on economic theories that suggest that some types of contracts may lead to lower investment and lower levels of productivity. For example, farmers may enter into contracts that reduce their incentives to make profitable investments in the land in order to obtain insurance against negative shocks. This analysis makes use of a land reform that occurred in some areas of rural China where farmers were allowed to use their land as capital investment to enter into profit-sharing contracts with large-scale agricultural firms. Because our research project has a novel focus on contracts with both agricultural firms and with other individuals, we will collect a new data set that includes detailed information from both farmers and agricultural firms on their agricultural investments and outputs as well as on the contracts between these parties. This research will provide valuable insight into how land market interactions among farmers and between farmers and agricultural firms affect rural economic growth. In addition, the results of this project can also provide policy-relevant implications for process of economic transition associated with the rise of large-scale agricultural farming.