The rural household’s entrepreneurship under the land certification in China

Abstract

As China’s economic growth slows down and the pressure of the economic downward increases gradually, the agricultural and rural economic development faces more serious challenges. Fortunately, thanks to the China’s rural land certification, it guarantees the security and stability of property rights of land, and provides a huge development space for rural household’s entrepreneurship, which promotes agricultural and rural economy greatly. In order to investigate the impact of the land certification on rural household’s entrepreneurship in China, this paper uses China Rural Household Panel Survey data for the empirical analysis based on the panel Logit model. The results show that: (1) The land certification increases the probability of agricultural entrepreneurship by at least 25%, but it has no significant influences on non-agricultural entrepreneurship. (2) The rural land certification with boundary influences agricultural entrepreneurship more significant than that without boundary, and the land certification to household is more beneficial for agricultural rural household’s entrepreneurship than that without to household. (3) The land certification mainly increases probability of agricultural entrepreneurship through the land transfer, labor allocation, and capital allocation. Moreover, the research of this study highlights the importance of standardizing rural labor market and accelerating land financial reform in creating conditions for agricultural entrepreneurship, which can provide effective data support for future rural policy-making.

Keywords:

• Agricultural economics
• land certification
• agricultural entrepreneurship
• non-agricultural entrepreneurship

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of the land certification on rural household’s entrepreneurship in China. This is the research that is used to highlight the importance of rural land system reform in creating conditions for the rural household’s entrepreneurship. The rural institutional change can significantly promote the entrepreneurship of rural households, economic growth, and reduce poverty for the developing countries. This article provides an effective experience support for the future rural reform.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge data support from the China Rural Household Panel Survey by Zhejiang University. Additionally, all authors extend great gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful reviews and critical comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Social Science Fund of China (grant number: 20CGL050); Chongqing Social Sciences Planning Office (grant number: 2021YBCS53).

Notes on contributors

Fang Yang

Fang Yang holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and is currently an Assistant Researcher of Agricultural Science and Economics with the Postdoctoral Research Center of Agricultural Bank of China, and School of Economics with Peking University. She has researched and published on various issues relating to rural household’s behaviors, land transfer, and rural collective economic organizations.

Wei Liu

Wei Liu holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and is currently a lecturer in the School of Economics of Chongqing Technology and Business University. He has researched and published on various issues relating to rural household’s poverty, income inequality, and common prosperity.

Ting Wen

Ting Wen has a doctor’s degree in agricultural economics and is currently a full-time researcher of Chongqing Research Center of High-skilled Personnel Development with Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering, and is employed as an associate professor. She studied and published various issues related to farmers’ behavior, land transfer and agricultural support policies.