Research on Interest Distribution Issues in Rural Homestead Expropriation
Households' residential land (zhaijidi) is a unique institutional arrangement under China’s urban-rural dual land ownership system [1]. The nature of the land status is rural collective ownership, while rural households possess ownership rights over the houses and ancillary facilities built upon the collectively owned land, as well as exclusive use rights over the land itself. Households can utilize these structures to obtain economic benefits, and the aforementioned rights and interests can be inherited or transferred within the collective of the same village. However, residential land cannot be transferred to economic entities outside the village collective, much less to urban residents. Under China’s existing institutional arrangements, the nature of rural collective ownership dictates that for residential land to be transformed into urban construction land, it must undergo government expropriation. The distribution of land value-added rent among various actors during the process of residential land expropriation has thus become an economic issue of significant research value.
Drawing upon Marxist rent theory as its theoretical foundation and analytical tool, this book synthetically applies research methods such as mathematical economics and game theory, while incorporating relevant findings from sociology, to conduct an in-depth study on how local governments and farmers distribute land value-added gains during the expropriation of rural residential land. Under the current institutional arrangements, local governments possess a monopoly over the right to expropriate rural land [2] and a monopoly over the supply in the primary urban land market. Consequently, farmers are unable to participate in the distribution of land value-added gains, and their interests are compromised. Although farmers can engage in various forms of bargaining (game-playing) with local governments to increase their share of the obtainable land value increment, their level of benefit remains low, and they are unable to alter their disadvantaged position in land expropriation.
About the Author
Sun Qiupeng is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Marxism Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and holds a Doctorate in Economics. He graduated from the School of Economics and Management at Jilin University of Technology in 1999 with a Bachelor of Engineering in Technical Economics and Management; in 2002, he graduated from the Department of Economics at Nankai University with a Master of Economics; and in 2005, he graduated from the Department of Political Economy at the Institute of Economics of the CASS with a Doctorate in Economics. His primary research interests include political economy and land economics. He has published over thirty papers in various core journals, authored two academic monographs, and presided over or participated in more than ten research projects of various types.
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction Section 1: Research Background and Significance Section 2: Literature Review I. Literature Related to the Transfer of Residential Land II. Literature Related to Land Expropriation Section 3: Research Logic and Methods I. Research Logic II. Research Methods
Chapter 2: Rent Distribution between Local Governments and Rural Households Based on Marxist Rent Theory Section 1: Marxist Rent Theory and Related Research I. Marxist Rent Theory II. Domestic and International Development and Application Section 2: Institutional Framework and the Rent Attributes of Residential Land Value Increment I. Institutional Framework II. The Rent Attributes of the Value-Added Component of Residential Land Section 3: Supply and Demand Functions of Related Actors I. Rural Households' Residential Land Supply Function II. Local Government Revenue Function III. Central Government Interests IV. Interests of Land Users Section 4: The Expropriation Process and Rent Distribution I. Distribution of Land Value Increment under Conditions of Free Transaction II. Local Government Bilateral Monopoly and the Corner Solution III. Local Government Differential Pricing and the Ratchet Effect IV. Control of Land Supply for Commercial Use by Local Governments V. Excessive Competition among Local Governments and Excessive Land Supply Section 5: Discussion of Related Issues Section 6: Chapter Summary
Chapter 3: Individual "Soft Resistance" by Rural Households, Local Government Strategies, and Rent Distribution Section 1: Rural Households' "Soft Resistance" and Local Government Responses I. Rural Households' "Soft Resistance" II. Local Government Responses Section 2: Individual "Soft Resistance," Lack of Punishment by Local Government, and Rent Distribution I. Main Hypotheses II. Rent Distribution under Rural Households' "Soft Resistance" Strategies Section 3: Rural Households' "Soft Resistance," Local Government Punishment, and Land Hoarding I. Main Hypotheses II. Rural Households' "Soft Resistance" and Local Government Punishment Section 4: Chapter Summary
Chapter 4: Individual "Hard Resistance" by Rural Households, Local Government Strength, and Forced Demolition Section 1: Individual "Hard Resistance" and Local Government Response Measures I. Individual "Hard Resistance" II. Local Government Responses Section 2: Behavioral Analysis of "Nail Houses" [3] I. Domestic and International Research Related to "Nail Houses" II. Revenue Functions for Rural Households and Local Government III. "Nail House" Behavior, Local Government Punishment, and Market Equilibrium Section 3: Local Government Punishment Capacity, Signaling, and Forced Demolition I. Rural Households' Lack of Information regarding Local Government Punishment Capacity II. Signaling and Separating Equilibrium Section 4: Chapter Summary
Chapter 5: Collective Resistance, Local Government Response, and Rent Distribution Section 1: Collective Resistance and Local Government Response Measures I. Collective Resistance II. Local Government Responses Section 2: Main Hypotheses and the Rents being Contested I. Main Hypotheses II. Contested Land Value-Added Gains Section 3: The Bargaining Process: Based on Nash Bargaining Theory I. Bargaining without Order of Bidding II. Government Strength and Severity of Punishment Section 4: The Bargaining Process: Based on Rubinstein’s Alternating-Offers Theory I. One-period Bargaining II. Finite-period Bargaining Greater than One Period III. Infinite-period Bargaining IV. Comparison of Patience between Local Governments and Resisting Groups V. Breakdown of Negotiations Section 5: Chapter Summary
References