Impact of China’s rural collective construction land marketization reform on unlocking entrepreneurial potential

Due to the inability to legally transfer the usage rights of collective land, the enhancement of entrepreneurial vitality faces a land crisis that hinders reproduction and economic development. The Rural Collective Construction Land Marketization Reform (RCCLMR) may serve as an effective solution to this issue. This paper leverages the two-phased implementation of the RCCLMR since 2015 as a quasi-natural experiment. We apply a multi-period difference-in-differences approach to evaluate the impact of the reform on county-level entrepreneurial vitality and its underlying mechanisms by utilizing data from the registration information of industrial and commercial enterprises of China and the county-level panel dataset. This paper finds that the reform significantly boosts county-level entrepreneurial vitality in China. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this positive effect diminishes with the intensification of population aging, while in regions with well-developed digital economies or lower fiscal pressure, the effect is more pronounced. Mechanism analysis shows that the reform enhances entrepreneurial vitality by increasing land supply, enhancing infrastructure, and increasing market demand. This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial vitality, injects new momentum into the development of rural areas in China, and provides valuable references for optimizing land resource allocation and meshing together urban and rural development.