IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v13y2024i2p251-d1340794.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Dialect Diversity on Rent-Free Farmland Transfers: Evidence from Chinese Rural Household Surveys

Author

Listed:
  • Shangpu Li

    (National School of Agricultural Institution and Development, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China)

  • Ye Jiang

    (Department of Economics, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013, USA)

  • Biliang Luo

    (National School of Agricultural Institution and Development, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China)

  • Xiaodan Zheng

    (College of Economics and Management, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China)

Abstract

The rent-free farmland transfer that exists widely in China’s rural areas is a topic worthy of attention. Particularly, the regional heterogeneity of its occurrences implies regional cultural heterogeneities. Using local dialects to proxy regional cultural features, this study applies econometric methods to examine the impacts of dialect diversity on rent-free farmland transfers. It also considers possible mechanisms through a mediation analysis, based on a combined two-year rural household survey dataset from the Guangdong and Jiangxi Provinces in 2015 and 2016. Robust estimation results reveal that dialect diversity increases the probability of rent-free farmland transfers at the household and village levels. According to the mediation analysis, dialect diversity influences villages’ farmland abandonment, rural farmland market development, and the flexibility of farmland transfer contracts, which further affects rent-free farmland transfer. Rent-free farmland transfer depends on social trust and contracts’ self-fulfilling advantages. Therefore, cultural and traditional factors should be taken into consideration, which would form beneficial interactions between the selections of rural farmland institutional arrangement and land rights policy implementations.

Suggested Citation

  • Shangpu Li & Ye Jiang & Biliang Luo & Xiaodan Zheng, 2024. "The Impact of Dialect Diversity on Rent-Free Farmland Transfers: Evidence from Chinese Rural Household Surveys," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-22, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:2:p:251-:d:1340794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/2/251/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/2/251/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhu, Junbing & Grigoriadis, Theocharis N., 2022. "Chinese dialects, culture & economic performance," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan & Lameli, Alfred & Südekum, Jens, 2012. "Dialects, cultural identity, and economic exchange," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 225-239.
    3. Wei Feng & Yanrui Wu & Yue Fu, 2021. "Dialect Diversity and Foreign Direct Investment in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 29(2), pages 49-72, March.
    4. Johanna Choumert & Pascale Phélinas, 2017. "Farmland Rental Prices in GM Soybean Areas of Argentina: Do Contractual Arrangements Matter?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(8), pages 1286-1302, August.
    5. Hu, Huiting & Yu, Gangning & Xiong, Xueli & Guo, Lijia & Huang, Jiashun, 2022. "Cultural Diversity and Innovation: An Empirical Study from Dialect," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. Khantachavana, Sivalai V. & Turvey, Calum G. & Kong, Rong & Xia, Xianli, 2013. "On the transaction values of land use rights in rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 863-878.
    7. Qin, Ming & Lin, Wensheng & Li, Jing & Yu, Zhou & Wachenheim, Cheryl, 2020. "Impact of land registration and certification on land rental by Chinese farmers," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jin, Ming & Chen, Fanglin & Chen, Zhongfei, 2023. "Cultural barriers in China's corporate loans," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Xiong, Jiacai & Yang, Zelin & Wang, Xin & Chan, Kam C., 2023. "Does dialect diversity affect entrepreneurial activities? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    3. Zhang, Jian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan & Li, Xiaoshun, 2020. "Factors affecting farmland rental in rural China: Evidence of capitalization of grain subsidy payments," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. LUO, Jiahui & TAN, Zhixiong, 2024. "Influence of dialect diversity on level of urban innovation—Empirical evidence based on 276 cities in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    5. Jianghong Xu & Chenguang Wang & Xukang Yin & Weixin Wang, 2024. "Digital economy and rural household resilience: Evidence from China," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 70(5), pages 244-263.
    6. Xu, Jinhai & Zeng, Junming & Hu, Yuan, 2024. "Property rights system and market evolution: Plot-level evidence from China’s land titling," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    7. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2012. "Culture Languages and Economics," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-009, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Martin Micheli & Jan Rouwendal & Jasper Dekkers, 2019. "Border Effects in House Prices," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 47(3), pages 757-783, September.
    9. Joshua Bedi, 2024. "Fake marriages, asylum, and gas station robberies: institutional determinants of migrants' strategies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 45-72, March.
    10. Grogger, Jeffrey & Steinmayr, Andreas & Winter, Joachim, 2019. "The Wage Penalty of Regional Accents," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 184, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten & Libman, Alexander & Yu, Xiaofan, 2014. "Economic integration in China: Politics and culture," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 470-492.
    12. Ma, Shuang & Mu, Ren, 2020. "Forced off the farm? Farmers’ labor allocation response to land requisition in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    13. Thisse, Jacques-François & Proost, Stef, 2015. "Skilled Cities, Regional Disparities, and Efficient Transport: The state of the art and a research agenda," CEPR Discussion Papers 10790, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Benedikt Herz & Xosé-Luís Varela-Irimia, 2020. "Border effects in European public procurement [Information costs and home bias: an analysis of US holdings of foreign equities]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(6), pages 1359-1405.
    15. Zhu, Chen & Xia, Yuqing & Liu, Qing & Hou, Bojun, 2023. "Deregulation and green innovation: Does cultural reform pilot project matter," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 84-105.
    16. Cottier, Lionel, 2018. "Culture, financial constraints, and retirement decision," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 128-145.
    17. Peng Gao & Dan He & Zhijing Sun & Yuemin Ning, 2020. "Characterizing functionally integrated regions in the Central Yangtze River Megaregion from a city‐network perspective," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 1357-1379, September.
    18. Giampaolo Lecce & Laura Ogliari & Tommaso Orlando, 2017. "Resistance to Institutions and Cultural Distance: Brigandage in Post-Unification Italy," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2097, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Hao Wei & Ran Yuan & Laixun Zhao, 2019. "Cultural Factors and Study Destinations of International Students," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 27(6), pages 26-49, November.
    20. Damiaan Persyn & Wouter Torfs, 2013. "A gravity equation for commuting - with an application to estimating regional and language border effects in Belgium," ERSA conference papers ersa13p599, European Regional Science Association.

    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:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:2:p:251-:d:1340794. 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.