IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v38y2016icp116-129.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect on forestation of the collective forest tenure reform in China

Author

Listed:
  • Xie, Lunyu
  • Berck, Peter
  • Xu, Jintao

Abstract

The Chinese government has allowed collective village forest land to pass into individualized ownership. The purpose was to alleviate rural poverty and stimulate investment in forests. Using data collected from 288 villages, in eight provinces, over three years, this paper measures the effect of the individualization on one aspect of forest investment, forestation. Because villages voted on the reform, we identify the causal effect of the reform by an instrumental variable estimator based on the countywide decision to offer the reform package. We find an increase in forestation of 7.68% of forest land in the year of the reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Xie, Lunyu & Berck, Peter & Xu, Jintao, 2016. "The effect on forestation of the collective forest tenure reform in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 116-129.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:38:y:2016:i:c:p:116-129
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2015.12.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X15001595
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2015.12.005?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. Rozelle, Scott & Huang, Jikun & Benziger, Vince, 2003. "Forest Exploitation and Protection in Reform China: Assessing the Impact of Policy, Tenure, and Economic Growth," Working Papers 225890, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Runsheng Yin & Jintao Xu & Zhou Li, 2003. "Building Institutions for Markets: Experiences and Lessons from China's Rural Forest Sector," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 333-351, September.
    3. Robert T. Deacon, 1994. "Deforestation and the Rule of Law in a Cross-Section of Countries," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 70(4), pages 414-430.
    4. Yin, Runsheng & Newman, David H., 1997. "Impacts of rural reforms: the case of the Chinese forest sector," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(3), pages 291-305, July.
    5. Behera, Bhagirath & Engel, Stefanie, 2006. "Institutional analysis of evolution of joint forest management in India: A new institutional economics approach," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 350-362, June.
    6. Xie, Yi & Wen, Yali & Zhang, Yaoqi & Li, Xiaoyong, 2013. "Impact of property rights reform on household forest management investment: An empirical study of southern China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 73-78.
    7. Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2010. "Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 700-729, October.
    8. Yin, Runsheng & Xu, Jintao, 2002. "A Welfare Measurement of China's Rural Forestry Reform During the 1980s," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 1755-1767, October.
    9. Zvi Lerman, 1999. "Land Reform and Farm Restructuring: What Has Been Accomplished to Date?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 271-275, May.
    10. Gunnar Köhlin & Gregory S. Amacher, 2005. "Welfare Implications of Community Forest Plantations in Developing Countries: The Orissa Social Forestry Project," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(4), pages 855-869.
    11. Capozza, Dennis R & Sick, Gordon A, 1991. "Valuing Long-Term Leases: The Option to Redevelop," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 209-223, June.
    12. Lin, Justin Yifu, 1992. "Rural Reforms and Agricultural Growth in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 34-51, March.
    13. Damodaran, Appukuttannair & Engel, Stefanie, 2003. "Joint Forest Management In India: Assessment Of Performance And Evaluation Of Impacts," Discussion Papers 18752, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    14. Heidi J. Albers & Scott D. Rozelle & Li Guo, 1998. "China'S Forests Under Economic Reform: Timber Supplies, Environmental Protection, And Rural Resource Access," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 16(1), pages 22-33, January.
    15. Camille Antinori & Gordon Rausser, 2007. "Collective choice and community forestry management in Mexico: An empirical analysis," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 512-536.
    16. Palmer, Charles & Engel, Stefanie, 2007. "For Better or for Worse? Local Impacts of the Decentralization of Indonesia's Forest Sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2131-2149, December.
    17. Xie, Yi & Gong, Peichen & Han, Xiao & Wen, Yali, 2014. "The effect of collective forestland tenure reform in China: Does land parcelization reduce forest management intensity?," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 126-140.
    18. Ballabh, Vishwa & Balooni, Kulbhushan & Dave, Shibani, 2002. "Why Local Resources Management Institutions Decline: A Comparative Analysis of Van (Forest) Panchayats and Forest Protection Committees in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2153-2167, December.
    19. Mendelsohn, Robert, 1994. "Property Rights and Tropical Deforestation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(0), pages 750-756, Supplemen.
    20. Zhang, Yaoqi & Uusivuori, Jussi & Kuuluvainen, Jari, 2000. "Impacts of economic reforms on rural forestry in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 27-40, May.
    21. Wen, Guanzhong James, 1993. "Total Factor Productivity Change in China's Farming Sector: 1952-1989," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 1-41, October.
    22. Engel, Stefanie & Palmer, Charles, 2006. "Who owns the right? The determinants of community benefits from logging in Indonesia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 434-446, June.
    23. Arun Agrawal & Elinor Ostrom, 2001. "Collective Action, Property Rights, and Decentralization in Resource Use in India and Nepal," Politics & Society, , vol. 29(4), pages 485-514, December.
    24. Ping Qin & Jintao Xu, 2013. "Forest land rights, tenure types, and farmers' investment incentives in China," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 5(1), pages 154-170, January.
    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. Xu, Chang & Li, Lingchao & Cheng, Baodong, 2021. "The impact of institutions on forestland transfer rents: The case of Zhejiang province in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Yi, Yuanyuan, 2023. "Devolution of tenure rights in forestland in China: Impact on investment and forest growth," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Zhu, Zhen & Xu, Zhigang & Shen, Yueqin & Huang, Chenming & Zhang, Yaoqi, 2019. "How off-farm work drives the intensity of rural households' investment in forest management: The case from Zhejiang, China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 30-43.
    4. Long, Hexing & de Jong, Wil & Yiwen, Zhang & Liu, Jinlong, 2021. "Institutional choices between private management and user group management during forest devolution: A case study of forest allocation in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    5. Yuepeng Zhou & Xianlei Ma & Dengyan Ji & Nico Heerink & Xiaoping Shi & Hongbin Liu, 2018. "Does Property Rights Integrity Improve Tenure Security? Evidence from China’s Forest Reform," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Shuning Zhu & Jinlong Liu & Hao Xu & Lingchao Li & Wentao Yang, 2022. "Has China’s New Round of Collective Forest Reforms Reduced Forest Fragmentation? A Case Study of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-15, May.
    7. Xie, Fangting & Zhu, Shubin & Cao, Mengtian & Kang, Xiaolan & Du, Juan, 2019. "Does rural labor outward migration reduce household forest investment? The experience of Jiangxi, China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 62-69.
    8. Han Zhang & Jari Kuuluvainen & Hongqiang Yang & Yi Xie & Can Liu, 2017. "The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Forestland Transfers in China: A Simultaneous-Equation Tobit Model Estimation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-14, September.
    9. Yi, Yuanyuan & Xu, Jintao & Köhlin, Gunnar & Deininger, Klaus, 2020. "Devolution and Collective Action in Forest Management: The Case of China," EfD Discussion Paper 20-21, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    10. Liu, Shilei & Xu, Jintao, 2019. "Livelihood mushroomed: Examining household level impacts of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) under new management regime in China's state forests," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 44-53.
    11. Yang Yang & Hua Li & Long Cheng & Youliang Ning, 2021. "Effect of Land Property Rights on Forest Resources in Southern China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    12. Zhang Yiwen & Shashi Kant & Hexing Long, 2020. "Collective Action Dilemma after China’s Forest Tenure Reform: Operationalizing Forest Devolution in a Rapidly Changing Society," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-18, February.
    13. Yuge Wang & Apurbo Sarkar & Min Li & Zehui Chen & Ahmed Khairul Hasan & Quanxing Meng & Md. Shakhawat Hossain & Md. Ashfikur Rahman, 2022. "Evaluating the Impact of Forest Tenure Reform on Farmers’ Investment in Public Welfare Forest Areas: A Case Study of Gansu Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.
    14. Myers, Rodd & Fisher, Micah & Monterroso, Iliana & Liswanti, Nining & Maryudi, Ahmad & Larson, Anne M. & Mwangi, Esther & Herawati, Tuti, 2022. "Coordinating forest tenure reform: Objectives, resources and relations in Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, and Uganda," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. Nansikombi, Hellen & Fischer, Richard & Ferrer Velasco, Rubén & Lippe, Melvin & Kalaba, Felix Kanungwe & Kabwe, Gillian & Günter, Sven, 2020. "Can de facto governance influence deforestation drivers in the Zambian Miombo?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    16. Xiaowo Wu & Jiangwei Tu & Boru Liu & Xi Zhou & Yanxiong Wu, 2022. "Credit Risk Evaluation of Forest Farmers under Internet Crowdfunding Mode: The Case of China’s Collective Forest Regions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-17, May.
    17. Min Li & Apurbo Sarkar & Yuge Wang & Ahmed Khairul Hasan & Quanxing Meng, 2022. "Evaluating the Impact of Ecological Property Rights to Trigger Farmers’ Investment Behavior—An Example of Confluence Area of Heihe Reservoir, Shaanxi, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-23, February.
    18. Krul, Kees & Ho, Peter & Yang, Xiuyun, 2020. "Incentivizing household forest management in China's forest reform: Limitations to rights-based approaches in Southwest China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    19. Yang, Xiaojun & Xu, Jintao & Xu, Xiaojie & Yi, Yuanyuan & Hyde, William F., 2020. "Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Yang Ren & Jari Kuuluvainen & Anne Toppinen & Shunbo Yao & Sami Berghäll & Heimo Karppinen & Caixia Xue & Liu Yang, 2018. "The Effect of China’s New Circular Collective Forest Tenure Reform on Household Non-Timber Forest Product Production in Natural Forest Protection Project Regions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, April.
    21. Ning, Zhuo & Hou, Yuke & Xu, Xia, 2024. "Optimized strategies for nitrogen fertilizer application in Populus plantations in the context of climate change mitigation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    22. Lin, Boqiang & Ge, Jiamin, 2021. "Does institutional freedom matter for global forest carbon sinks in the face of economic development disparity?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    23. Han Zhang & Jari Kuuluvainen & Youliang Ning & Wenmei Liao & Can Liu, 2017. "Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    24. Yiwen, Zhang & Kant, Shashi & Dong, Jiayun & Liu, Jinlong, 2020. "How communities restructured forest tenure throughout the top-down devolution reform: Using the case of Fujian, China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    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. Yi, Yuanyuan, 2023. "Devolution of tenure rights in forestland in China: Impact on investment and forest growth," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    2. Yuepeng Zhou & Xiaoping Shi & Dengyan Ji & Xianlei Ma & Satish Chand, 2019. "Property rights integrity, tenure security and forestland rental market participation: Evidence from Jiangxi Province, China," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(2), pages 95-110, May.
    3. Xie, Yi & Gong, Peichen & Han, Xiao & Wen, Yali, 2014. "The effect of collective forestland tenure reform in China: Does land parcelization reduce forest management intensity?," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 126-140.
    4. Hong, Yan-Zhen & Chang, Hung-Hao & Dai, Yong-Wu, 2018. "Is deregulation of forest land use rights transactions associated with economic well-being and labor allocation of farm households? Empirical evidence in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 694-701.
    5. Xu, Tuoyuan & Zhang, Xiaoxiao & Agrawal, Arun & Liu, Jinlong, 2020. "Decentralizing while centralizing: An explanation of China's collective forestry reform since the 1980s," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. Liu, Can & Wang, Sen & Liu, Hao & Zhu, Wenqing, 2017. "Why did the 1980s' reform of collective forestland tenure in southern China fail?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 131-141.
    7. Yin, Runsheng & Xu, Jintao, 2002. "A Welfare Measurement of China's Rural Forestry Reform During the 1980s," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 1755-1767, October.
    8. Zhang, Yaoqi & Uusivuori, Jussi & Kuuluvainen, Jari, 2000. "Impacts of economic reforms on rural forestry in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 27-40, May.
    9. Han Zhang & Jari Kuuluvainen & Youliang Ning & Wenmei Liao & Can Liu, 2017. "Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    10. Zhu, Zhen & Xu, Zhigang & Shen, Yueqin & Huang, Chenming, 2020. "How forestland size affects household profits from timber harvests: A case-study in China’s Southern collective forest area," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Liu, Can & Wang, Sen & Liu, Hao & Zhu, Wenqing, 2019. "Reprint of: Why did the 1980s' reform of collective forestland tenure in southern China fail?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 8-18.
    12. Yang, Xiaojun & Xu, Jintao & Xu, Xiaojie & Yi, Yuanyuan & Hyde, William F., 2020. "Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    13. Huang, Senwei & Zhang, Yaoqi & Zheng, Yifang & Su, Shipeng & Zheng, Jing, 2019. "Inequality and small landholdings: Path dependence, land use and wellbeing," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 62-66.
    14. Krul, Kees & Ho, Peter & Yang, Xiuyun, 2020. "Incentivizing household forest management in China's forest reform: Limitations to rights-based approaches in Southwest China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    15. Xu, Chang & Li, Lingchao & Cheng, Baodong, 2021. "The impact of institutions on forestland transfer rents: The case of Zhejiang province in China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    16. Chen Hu & Hongxiao Zhang, 2023. "The Impact of Collective Forest Tenure Reform on Forest Carbon Sequestration Capacity—An Analysis Based on the Social–Ecological System Framework," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-20, August.
    17. Xiaoyong Li & Giuseppe T. Cirella & Yali Wen & Yi Xie, 2020. "Farmers’ Intentions to Lease Forestland: Evidence from Rural China," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-18, March.
    18. Behera, Bhagirath, 2009. "Explaining the performance of state-community joint forest management in India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 177-185, November.
    19. Zhu, Zhen & Xu, Zhigang & Shen, Yueqin & Huang, Chenming & Zhang, Yaoqi, 2019. "How off-farm work drives the intensity of rural households' investment in forest management: The case from Zhejiang, China," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 30-43.
    20. Zhang, Y., 2001. "Economics of transaction costs saving forestry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 197-204, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; Forestation; Land reform; Individualization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:chieco:v:38:y:2016:i:c:p:116-129. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    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.