Research Seminar – Institutional Diversity in Transferring Land Development Rights in China: Government, Market and Self-organization

Research Seminar

Topic:
Institutional Diversity in Transferring Land Development Rights in China: Government, Market and Self-organization

Speaker:
Chen Shi
PhD Student

Schedule:
Monday, 18 April 2016 (12:45-14:00)
Room 829, Knowles Building
The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:
The Chinese government is facing a dilemma of achieving two conflicting targets of land governance, i.e. the continuous supply of urban construction land to support urbanization and the protection of cultivated land to sustain agricultural production. Under the Chinese dual land system, urban and rural land markets are separated, and urbanization is achieved largely through the state acquisition of rural land. However, implementation of the recent “Linkage between Urban-land Taking and Rural-land Giving” (abbreviated as LUTRG) Policy is said to be able to achieve the above policy goals by commodifying the land development rights (abbreviated as LDR) and connecting urban and rural LDR markets. Preliminary investigations have shown that this policy appears to provide an opportunity for stakeholders other than the state to compete for the value from the de facto LDR, and trigger the emergence of other approaches in organizing land development projects in rural China.

In this study, LUTRG will be analyzed not only as a national land policy for achieving specific policy goals but also as an institutional arrangement in coordinating land development projects that involve multiple stakeholders in rural China. The different LUTRG implementation models will be conceptualized as diverse governance structures that have varying influences on project performance and comparative advantages in lowering transaction costs under different circumstances. Based on the theoretical perspective of New Institutional Economics and an empirical study in Chengdu, this study aims to answer three key research questions: (1) How can the different LUTRG models align the interests of different stakeholders? (2) How do the interactions among different stakeholders influence the performance of the LUTRG models? (3) Why are different LUTRG models chosen in different circumstances? This study is intended to fill the gap about the issues of institutional diversity in China’s land governance under the interaction among government, market and society.

About the Speaker:
SHI Chen is a PhD student in Department of Urban Planning and Design. Prior to joining the department in 2014, she obtained a Bachelor Degree in Project Management from Zhongnan University of Economics and Laws and a Master Degree of Science in Land Resource Management from Zhejiang University. Her research interests include China’s urbanization, land institutions and land policies.

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