Selling and buying rural lands after land titling? ——What factors lead to Chinese farmers’ wrong cognition

ABSTRACT

The article finds that a plenty of Chinese farmers hope to sell and buy rural lands freely after rural land titling, which does not accord with the current land policy and property rights law. The empirical model suggests that the individual’s view on land ownership, the situation of holding a land contract certificate, personal age, and health condition may lead to this wrong cognition.

KEYWORDS:

• Land titling
• cognition
• land ownership
• land contract certificate
• China

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The old version of land contract certificates were awarded to the farmers after the policy implementation of ‘Second round of land leases’ during 1997–2000. The certificate ensures that the holder has full land rights (excluding the ownership) on his/her contracted lands. Land titling remeasures the individual’s contract lands, and awards new version of land contract certificates to the farmers. Therefore, the respondents who answered ‘yes’ showed us either the old version of land contract certificates (most of the respondents), or the new version ones.

Additional information

Funding

This research is fully funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2018M640156];National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China [Training Programme for Young and Middle-aged Talent]. The authors are responsible for the consequences of this article.