IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v9y2017i7p1175-d103761.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterizing the Land Shareholding Cooperative: A Case Study of Shanglin Village in Jiangsu, China

Author

Listed:
  • Yi Ren

    (School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China)

  • Yang Bian

    (School of Banking and Finance, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China)

  • Tao He

    (College of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China)

Abstract

The land tenure reform is the key to sustainable development in rural China. Without challenging the collective ownership of land, the land shareholding cooperative (LSC) system came into being and is being strongly endorsed by the authority: It re-collectivizes the contracted land from peasants and enables better regional planning and large-scale modern agricultural production. This paper studies a specific LSC (Shanglin LSC in the Sunan region of the Yangtze River Delta) based on our fieldwork. We found that the LSC system is a bottom-up institutional innovation towards sustainable land use in China. Both village cadres and ordinary peasants’ decision making contributes to its successful establishment and development. This shareholding system increases peasants’ income through dividends and employment opportunities. The concentrated land enables ecological farming. Acting as a quasi-government agency, the LSC also provides public service and social security to the village community. On the other hand, the LSCs’ success depends on certain prior conditions and the LSCs’ multiple missions may contradict each other from time to time, and lead to loss of efficiency. We argue that this approach to land tenure reform may not be universally applied to any regions in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Ren & Yang Bian & Tao He, 2017. "Characterizing the Land Shareholding Cooperative: A Case Study of Shanglin Village in Jiangsu, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:7:p:1175-:d:103761
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1175/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1175/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lanchih Po, 2008. "Redefining Rural Collectives in China: Land Conversion and the Emergence of Rural Shareholding Co-operatives," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(8), pages 1603-1623, July.
    2. Deng, Hengshan & Huang, Jikun & Xu, Zhigang & Rozelle, Scott, 2010. "Policy support and emerging farmer professional cooperatives in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 495-507, December.
    3. Célestin Etoundi-Eloundou, 2017. "La microfinance contemporaine," Post-Print hal-03541335, HAL.
    4. Rozelle, Scott & Li, Guo, 1998. "Village Leaders and Land-Rights Formation in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 433-438, May.
    5. Charles M. Tiebout, 1961. "An Economic Theory of Fiscal Decentralization," NBER Chapters, in: Public Finances: Needs, Sources, and Utilization, pages 79-96, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jiao, Man & Xu, Hengzhou, 2022. "How do Collective Operating Construction Land (COCL) Transactions affect rural residents’ property income? Evidence from rural Deqing County, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    2. Hualin Xie, 2017. "Towards Sustainable Land Use in China: A Collection of Empirical Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-9, November.
    3. Yang Zou & Qingbin Wang, 2022. "Impacts of farmer cooperative membership on household income and inequality: Evidence from a household survey in China," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    4. Jiangsheng Chen & Gideon Bolt & Yiwen Wang & Xiaoli Feng & Xuke Li, 2021. "An Empirical Diagnosis of the School-to-Work Process for Rural and Agricultural Development in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Keming Huang & Fangzhou Xia, 2023. "Classification of Rural Relative Poverty Groups and Measurement of the Influence of Land Elements: A Questionnaire-Based Analysis of 23 Poor Counties in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-23, April.
    6. Zou, Baoling & Mishra, Ashok K. & Luo, Biliang, 2018. "Aging population, farm succession, and farmland usage: Evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 437-445.
    7. Zou, Baoling & Mishra, Ashok K. & Luo, Biliang, 2020. "Grain subsidy, off-farm labor supply and farmland leasing: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Gian Nicola Francesconi & Fleur Wouterse, 2022. "The potential of land shareholding cooperatives for inclusive agribusiness development in Africa," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(1), pages 161-176, March.

    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. John Giles & Ren Mu, 2018. "Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision: Evidence from China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(2), pages 521-544.
    2. Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Geography vs. Institutions at the Village Level," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 9, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    3. Qin, Pin & Carlsson, Fredrik & Xu, Jintao, 2009. "Forestland Reform in China: What do the Farmers Want? A Choice Experiment on Farmers’ Property Rights Preferences," Working Papers in Economics 370, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    4. Ping Qin & Fredrik Carlsson & Jintao Xu, 2011. "Forest Tenure Reform in China: A Choice Experiment on Farmers’ Property Rights Preferences," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 87(3), pages 473-487.
    5. Jia, Lili, 2012. "Land fragmentation and off-farm labor supply in China," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 66, number 66.
    6. Marciano, Alain, 2011. "Buchanan on externalities: An exercise in applied subjectivism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 280-289.
    7. Mullan, Katrina & Grosjean, Pauline & Kontoleon, Andreas, 2011. "Land Tenure Arrangements and Rural-Urban Migration in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 123-133, January.
    8. Hao, J., 2018. "Cooperative member commitment, trust and social pressure -- the role of members’ participation in the decision-making," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275881, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2003. "The Impact of Property Rights on Households' Investment, Risk Coping, and Policy Preferences: Evidence from China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 851-882, July.
    10. Chang Woon Nam & Rüdiger Parsche & Bettina Reichl, 2001. "Municipal finance and governance in Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic, and Hungary," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 2.
    11. Abhay Pethe, 2007. "Issues For The 13TH Finance Commission: Welcome To The Grey World Of Trade Offs!," Department of Economics, University of Mumbai, Mumbai Working Papers 27, Department of Economics, University of Mumbai, Mumbai.
    12. Feifei Chen & Zhigang Xu & Yufeng Luo, 2023. "False prosperity: Rethinking government support for farmers’ cooperatives in China," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 905-920, September.
    13. Jia, Lili & Petrick, Martin, 2014. "How does land fragmentation affect off-farm labor supply: panel data evidence from China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 369-380.
    14. Chen, Ying & Chen, Kevin Z., 2022. "Property Rights and Land Rental Markets: Evidence from a Quasi-experiment in China," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322541, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Nancy Qian, 2008. "Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China: The Effect of Sex-Specific Earnings on Sex Imbalance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1251-1285.
    16. Leight, Jessica, 2016. "Reallocating wealth? Insecure property rights and agricultural investment in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 207-227.
    17. Kimle, Kevin & Hongdong Guo, 2012. "Scaling Up from Smallholder Agriculture in China, North Branch River Vegetable Cooperative," Staff General Research Papers Archive 35735, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. Maëlys de La Rupelle & Deng Quheng & Li Shi & Thomas Vendryes, 2009. "Land rights insecurity and temporary migration in rural China," Working Papers halshs-00575041, HAL.
    19. Samal Kaliyeva & Francisco Jose Areal & Yiorgos Gadanakis, 2021. "Would Kazakh Citizens Support a Milk Co-Operative System?," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, July.
    20. Qian, Nancy & Padró i Miquel, Gerard & Martinez-Bravo, Monica & Yao, Yang, 2012. "The Effects of Democratization on Public Goods and Redistribution: Evidence from China," CEPR Discussion Papers 8975, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:7:p:1175-:d:103761. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.