IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v82y2019icp518-527.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of land fragmentation on the governance of the commons: Theory and evidence from 284 villages and 17 provinces in China

Author

Listed:
  • Zang, Liangzhen
  • Araral, Eduardo
  • Wang, Yahua

Abstract

The extant literature on the commons describes a large number of factors that could explain the drama of the commons or why some commons are managed well but others are not. However, little is known about the effects of land fragmentation on the governance of the commons. This question is important for developing countries, especially China where land holdings are highly fragmented with farmers having on average 4.127 plots of land. We employ ordered probit and step wise regression based on data from a survey of 3895 households from 284 villages in 17 provinces or regions in China. We find, consistent with theoretical expectation, that land fragmentation has a negative and significant effect on collective action and the governance of the commons. Farmers with more plots of land are more likely to free ride and less likely to contribute to collective action. Our findings have important implications for the governance of the commons specially in developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Zang, Liangzhen & Araral, Eduardo & Wang, Yahua, 2019. "Effects of land fragmentation on the governance of the commons: Theory and evidence from 284 villages and 17 provinces in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 518-527.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:82:y:2019:i:c:p:518-527
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.12.042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718314820
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.12.042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xie, Hualin & Lu, Hua, 2017. "Impact of land fragmentation and non-agricultural labor supply on circulation of agricultural land management rights," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 355-364.
    2. Kawasaki, Kentaro, 2010. "The costs and benefits of land fragmentation of rice farms in Japan," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(4), pages 1-18.
    3. Kentaro Kawasaki, 2010. "The costs and benefits of land fragmentation of rice farms in Japan ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(4), pages 509-526, October.
    4. Ciaian, Pavel & Guri, Fatmir & Rajcaniova, Miroslava & Drabik, Dusan & Paloma, Sergio Gomez y, 2018. "Land fragmentation and production diversification: A case study from rural Albania," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 589-599.
    5. Looga, J. & Jürgenson, E. & Sikk, K. & Matveev, E. & Maasikamäe, S., 2018. "Land fragmentation and other determinants of agricultural farm productivity: The case of Estonia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 285-292.
    6. Deininger, Klaus & Savastano, Sara & Carletto, Calogero, 2012. "Land Fragmentation, Cropland Abandonment, and Land Market Operation in Albania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 2108-2122.
    7. Agrawal, Arun & Gupta, Krishna, 2005. "Decentralization and Participation: The Governance of Common Pool Resources in Nepal's Terai," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1101-1114, July.
    8. Araral Jr., Eduardo, 2009. "What Explains Collective Action in the Commons? Theory and Evidence from the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 687-697, March.
    9. Qi, Xiaoxing & Dang, Heping, 2018. "Addressing the dual challenges of food security and environmental sustainability during rural livelihood transitions in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 199-208.
    10. Nagrah, Aatika & Chaudhry, Anita M. & Giordano, Mark, 2016. "Collective Action in Decentralized Irrigation Systems: Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 282-298.
    11. Natalie Chun, 2014. "The Challenge of Collective Action for Irrigation Management in India," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 13(2), pages 88-111, Summer.
    12. Krusekopf, Charles C., 2002. "Diversity in land-tenure arrangements under the household responsibility system in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 297-312.
    13. Wang, Yahua & Chen, Chunliang & Araral, Eduardo, 2016. "The Effects of Migration on Collective Action in the Commons: Evidence from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 79-93.
    14. Sikor, Thomas & Müller, Daniel & Stahl, Johannes, 2009. "Land Fragmentation and Cropland Abandonment in Albania: Implications for the Roles of State and Community in Post-Socialist Land Consolidation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1411-1423, August.
    15. Ricks, Jacob I., 2016. "Building Participatory Organizations for Common Pool Resource Management: Water User Group Promotion in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 34-47.
    16. Fitz, Dylan, 2018. "Evaluating the impact of market-assisted land reform in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 255-267.
    17. Lu, Hua & Xie, Hualin & He, Yafen & Wu, Zhilong & Zhang, Xinmin, 2018. "Assessing the impacts of land fragmentation and plot size on yields and costs: A translog production model and cost function approach," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 81-88.
    18. Arun Agrawal & Gautam Yadama, 1997. "How do Local Institutions Mediate Market and Population Pressures on Resources? Forest Panchayats in Kumaon, India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 435-465, July.
    19. Hanemann, Michael, 2014. "Property rights and sustainable irrigation—A developed world perspective," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 5-22.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yihu Zhou & Tingting Fang, 2023. "How Migration Behavior Affects the Contracted Land Disposal Methods of Rural Migrants in China: An Analysis Based on the Perspective of Geographical Differences," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, May.
    2. Wenjun Guo & Wei Zhao & Min Min, 2022. "Operation Scale, Transfer Experience, and Farmers’ Willingness toward Farmland Transfer-In: A Case Study of Rice–Crayfish Cultivating Regions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Katusiime, Juliet & Schütt, Brigitta & Mutai, Noah, 2023. "The relationship of land tenure, land use and land cover changes in Lake Victoria basin," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    4. Liu, Zhen & Tian, Jiali & Wang, Kexin & Lan, Jing, 2023. "The impact of farmland circulation on the carbon footprint of agricultural cultivation in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 792-801.
    5. Yuxiang Tan & Mingshun Xiang & Haixia Lu & Linsen Duan & Jin Yang & Jiake Meng & Ao Li & Lanlan Deng, 2023. "Spatial Difference Studies and Driving Force Analysis of Rural Settlements in the Northwest Sichuan Plateau," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Liu, Jing & Jin, Xiaobin & Xu, Weiyi & Sun, Rui & Han, Bo & Yang, Xuhong & Gu, Zhengming & Xu, Cuilan & Sui, Xueyan & Zhou, Yinkang, 2019. "Influential factors and classification of cultivated land fragmentation, and implications for future land consolidation: A case study of Jiangsu Province in eastern China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Juliet Katusiime & Brigitta Schütt, 2023. "Towards Legislation Responsive to Integrated Watershed Management Approaches and Land Tenure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-27, January.
    8. Xuewen Li & Yi Peng & Yunlai Yao, 2023. "Will Transaction Cost Be Reduced in the E-Commerce Model of Farmland Transfer in China?," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-19, February.
    9. Wang, Yahua & Wang, Huan, 2022. "Effects of farmland use rights transfer on collective action in the commons: Evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    10. Yu, Peiheng & Fennell, Shailaja & Chen, Yiyun & Liu, Hui & Xu, Lu & Pan, Jiawei & Bai, Shaoyun & Gu, Shixiang, 2022. "Positive impacts of farmland fragmentation on agricultural production efficiency in Qilu Lake watershed: Implications for appropriate scale management," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    11. Su, Yiqing & Araral, Eduardo & Wang, Yahua, 2020. "The effects of farmland use rights trading and labor outmigration on the governance of the irrigation commons: Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    12. Dongjie Wang & Hao Yang & Yueming Hu & A-Xing Zhu & Xiaoyun Mao, 2022. "Analyzing Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Cultivated Land Fragmentation and Their Influencing Factors in a Rapidly Developing Region: A Case Study in Guangdong Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, October.
    13. Lili Chen & Hongsheng Chen & Chaohui Zou & Ye Liu, 2021. "The Impact of Farmland Transfer on Rural Households’ Income Structure in the Context of Household Differentiation: A Case Study of Heilongjiang Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-20, April.
    14. Wang, Yahua & Chen, Sicheng & Araral, Eduardo, 2021. "The mediated effects of urban proximity on collective action in the commons: Theory and evidence from China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    15. Liangzhen Zang & Yahua Wang & Yiqing Su, 2021. "Does Farmland Scale Management Promote Rural Collective Action? An Empirical Study of Canal Irrigation Systems in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, November.
    16. Gao, Jia & Song, Ge & Sun, Xueqing, 2020. "Does labor migration affect rural land transfer? Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    17. Jiale Liang & Sipei Pan & Wanxu Chen & Jiangfeng Li & Ting Zhou, 2021. "Cultivated Land Fragmentation and Its Influencing Factors Detection: A Case Study in Huaihe River Basin, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-25, December.
    18. Liangzhen Zang & Yahua Wang & Jinkai Ke & Yiqing Su, 2022. "What Drives Smallholders to Utilize Socialized Agricultural Services for Farmland Scale Management? Insights from the Perspective of Collective Action," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-25, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zang, Liangzhen, 2021. "How Does Farmland Fragmentation Affect Collective Action in Rural Areas of China," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 314962, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Janus, Jaroslaw & Markuszewska, Iwona, 2019. "Forty years later: Assessment of the long-lasting effectiveness of land consolidation projects," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 22-31.
    3. Xu, Weiyi & Jin, Xiaobin & Liu, Jing & Zhou, Yinkang, 2021. "Analysis of influencing factors of cultivated land fragmentation based on hierarchical linear model: A case study of Jiangsu Province, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Yu, Peiheng & Fennell, Shailaja & Chen, Yiyun & Liu, Hui & Xu, Lu & Pan, Jiawei & Bai, Shaoyun & Gu, Shixiang, 2022. "Positive impacts of farmland fragmentation on agricultural production efficiency in Qilu Lake watershed: Implications for appropriate scale management," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    5. Shukun Wang & Dengwang Li & Tingting Li & Changquan Liu, 2021. "Land Use Transitions and Farm Performance in China: A Perspective of Land Fragmentation," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-22, July.
    6. Ganjar Kurnia & Iwan Setiawan & Ahmad C. Tridakusumah & Gani Jaelani & Mahra A. Heryanto & Adi Nugraha, 2022. "Local Wisdom for Ensuring Agriculture Sustainability: A Case from Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-13, July.
    7. Danqiu Cao & Yahua Wang & Liangzhen Zang, 2023. "The Effects of Land Reallocation on Irrigation Collective Action: Moderating Effects of Informal Organizations and Leadership," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-15, July.
    8. Zhang, Bangbang & Niu, Wenhao & Ma, Linyan & Zuo, Xuyang & Kong, Xiangbin & Chen, Haibin & Zhang, Yifan & Chen, Wei & Zhao, Minjuan & Xia, Xianli, 2019. "A company-dominated pattern of land consolidation to solve land fragmentation problem and its effectiveness evaluation: A case study in a hilly region of Guangxi Autonomous Region, Southwest China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Wang, Yahui & Li, Xiubin & Lu, Dan & Yan, Jianzhong, 2020. "Evaluating the impact of land fragmentation on the cost of agricultural operation in the southwest mountainous areas of China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Dongjie Wang & Hao Yang & Yueming Hu & A-Xing Zhu & Xiaoyun Mao, 2022. "Analyzing Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Cultivated Land Fragmentation and Their Influencing Factors in a Rapidly Developing Region: A Case Study in Guangdong Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-21, October.
    11. Pierre Damien Ntihinyurwa & Walter Timo de Vries, 2021. "Farmland Fragmentation, Farmland Consolidation and Food Security: Relationships, Research Lapses and Future Perspectives," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-39, January.
    12. Takayama, Taisuke & Matsuda, Hirotaka & Nakatani, Tomoaki, 2018. "The determinants of collective action in irrigation management systems: Evidence from rural communities in Japan," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 113-123.
    13. Gao, Jia & Song, Ge & Sun, Xueqing, 2020. "Does labor migration affect rural land transfer? Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    14. Su, Yiqing & Araral, Eduardo & Wang, Yahua, 2020. "The effects of farmland use rights trading and labor outmigration on the governance of the irrigation commons: Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    15. Lu, Hua & Xie, Hualin & He, Yafen & Wu, Zhilong & Zhang, Xinmin, 2018. "Assessing the impacts of land fragmentation and plot size on yields and costs: A translog production model and cost function approach," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 81-88.
    16. Ciaian, Pavel & Rajcaniova, Miroslava & Guri, Fatmir & Zhllima, Edvin & Shahu, Edmira, 2018. "The impact of crop rotation and land fragmentation on farm productivity in Albania," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 120(3), December.
    17. Linyi Zheng & Liufang Su & Songqing Jin, 2023. "Reducing land fragmentation to curb cropland abandonment: Evidence from rural China," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 71(3-4), pages 355-373, September.
    18. Wang, Yahua & Wang, Huan, 2022. "Effects of farmland use rights transfer on collective action in the commons: Evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    19. Jiguang Zhu & Yaru Sun & Yunxing Song, 2022. "Household Livelihood Strategy Changes and Agricultural Diversification: A Correlation and Mechanism Analysis Based on Data from the China Family Panel," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, May.
    20. Liu, Jing & Jin, Xiaobin & Xu, Weiyi & Sun, Rui & Han, Bo & Yang, Xuhong & Gu, Zhengming & Xu, Cuilan & Sui, Xueyan & Zhou, Yinkang, 2019. "Influential factors and classification of cultivated land fragmentation, and implications for future land consolidation: A case study of Jiangsu Province in eastern China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:82:y:2019:i:c:p:518-527. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.