Publication: The Impact of Property Rights on Households' Investment, Risk Coping, and Policy Preferences : Evidence from China
Loading...
Date
2002-11
ISSN
Published
2002-11
Author(s)
Jin, Songqing
Abstract
Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support. Data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others, suggest that greater tenure security, especially if combined with transferability of land, had a positive impact on agricultural investment and, within the time frame considered, led neither to an increase in inequality of land distribution nor a reduction in households' ability to cope with exogenous shocks. Household support for more secure property rights is increased by their access to other insurance mechanisms, suggesting some role of land as a safety net. At the same time, past exposure to this type of land right has a much larger impact quantitatively, suggesting that a large part of the resistance to changed property rights arrangements disappears as household familiarity with such rights increases.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Jin, Songqing; Deininger, Klaus. 2002. The Impact of Property Rights on Households' Investment, Risk Coping, and Policy Preferences : Evidence from China. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 2931. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19203 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Global Ripple Effects(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-26)The three major players in the global economy, the United States, the European Union, and China, have been designing climate mitigation policies that will help reduce their carbon emissions but will also likely reshape developing countries’ trade, prices, and access to technology. This paper examines developing countries’ exposure to such changes. Overall, the policies are expected to curtail demand for fossil fuels, energy-intensive manufacturing, and agricultural exports linked to environmental degradation. They are also expected to open export opportunities in critical minerals, electric vehicles and their components, and renewable energy technologies and components. The exposure of affected export sectors and the overall economy to these changes will vary across countries based on the orientation of their export sectors to the markets in the European Union, the United States, and Chinese as well as the weight of affected exports in their economies. The climate policies will also likely reduce oil prices and raise critical mineral prices, help reduce the cost of green technologies, and increase green foreign investment. The paper draws recommendations for developing countries, the European Union, the United States, and China, as well as the international community, on how best to help developing countries lessen the potential negative competitiveness effects of these climate policies and make the most of the opportunities for a faster green transition and economic development.Publication Firm Linkages and Domestic Value Added in Exports(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-26)Since 2000, China has been upgrading its infrastructure, exemplified by the expansion of the high-speed railways (HSR), while simultaneously moving up the global value chains, evidenced by the rising domestic value-added ratio (DVAR) in exports. To analyze the impacts of the HSR on China’s DVAR, this paper develops a new methodology to estimate firm-level DVAR using only customs transaction data, without relying on the industry input-output tables or matching firm-level industrial census data. This paper also proposes a novel way to capture firm-level input-output linkages by matching the custom product codes of importers and exporters. The results confirm that the HSR increases the DVAR through firm linkages by connecting downstream exporters with upstream domestic suppliers. A two-sector model shows that, by improving the probability of exporters connecting with low-communication cost domestic suppliers, the HSR decreases domestic material prices and increases the variety of accessible domestic materials, hence pushing up DVAR.Publication Indigenous peoples, land and conflict in Mindanao, Philippines(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-12)This article explores the links between conflict, land and indigenous peoples in several regions of Mindano, the Philippines, notorious for their levels of poverty and conflict. The analysis takes advantage of the unprecedented concurrence of data from the most recent, 2020, census; an independent conflict data monitor for Mindanao; and administrative sources on ancestral land titling for indigenous peoples in the Philippines. While evidence elsewhere compellingly links land titling with conflict reduction, a more nuanced story emerges in the Philippines. Conflicts, including land- and resource-related conflicts, are generally less likely in districts (barangays) with higher shares of indigenous peoples. Ancestral domain areas also have a lower likelihood for general conflict but a higher likelihood for land-related conflict. Ancestral domains titling does not automatically solve land-related conflicts. When administrative delays take place (from cumbersome bureaucratic processes, insufficient resources and weak institutional capacity), titling processes may lead to sustained, rather than decreased, conflict.Publication Behaviorally Informed Messages Increase COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-22)During the COVID-19 pandemic, low- and middle-income countries struggled with lower vaccination rates compared to wealthier countries, posing challenges to reducing virus transmission, mitigating healthcare system pressures, and promoting economic recovery. Communications campaigns offer low-cost opportunities to overcome such challenges by strengthening vaccine confidence and intentions to get vaccinated, but empirical testing is needed to identify which messages will be most effective in different contexts. To support policy-making efforts to design effective communication rapidly during the pandemic, a global research program of 28 online experiments was conducted by recruiting respondents (123,270 individuals) through social media between January 2021 and June 2022 across 23 mostly low- and middle-income countries and territories. An individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis of these data summarizes the results of this research program testing the impact of behaviorally informed messaging on vaccine intentions. Results from the meta-analysis show that among unvaccinated survey respondents, behaviorally informed messages significantly increased the odds of vaccination intention by 1.28 times overall and up to 1.93 times in individual studies (safety messages in Papua New Guinea). Significant pooled effects of specific framings ranged from increasing the odds of vaccination intention by 1.16 times (variant framing) to 1.45 times (experts and religious leaders framing). This research underscores the importance of communication tailored to address different drivers of vaccine hesitancy and offers insights for handling future health crises with behavioral communication strategies leveraging rapid insights afforded by social media.Publication From Fiscal Cyclicality to Fiscal Stress(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-26)Macroeconomic textbooks warn that procyclical public spending can amplify economic volatility and cause fiscal stress. However, the latter risks materialize only when governments fail to reduce spending during downturns as much as they increase it during booms. This study investigates asymmetries in the cyclicality of public consumption and finds that emerging markets exhibit “downward rigidity”: they boost spending during upswings but do not effectively cut back during downturns. In contrast, advanced economies maintain steady levels of public consumption regardless of economic conditions, making them effectively acyclical. Downward rigidity in public consumption not only paves the way for fiscal stress when the economy slows, but also leads to sustained growth in the size of the state.