IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v14y2025i3p613-d1612166.html

Land Property Rights, Social Trust, and Non-Agricultural Employment: An Interactive Study of Formal and Informal Institutions in China

Author

Listed:
  • Bohui Yuan

    (School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China)

  • Yanping Pu

    (School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China)

Abstract

Based on China’s structural transformation and the resulting rural social institutional changes, this paper clarifies how land certification affects non-agricultural employment, introducing trust culture as an informal institution and constructing a theoretical framework for their interactive effect on non-agricultural employment. Using data from the China Rural Household Panel Survey, the empirical research finds that land certification increases the likelihood of rural labor engaging in non-agricultural employment by reducing the risks of land loss, promoting land transfers, and facilitating credit financing. The interaction between land certification and social trust shows that increased social trust weakens the positive impact of land certification on non-agricultural employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Bohui Yuan & Yanping Pu, 2025. "Land Property Rights, Social Trust, and Non-Agricultural Employment: An Interactive Study of Formal and Informal Institutions in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-25, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:3:p:613-:d:1612166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/3/613/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/3/613/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Bjørnskov, 2011. "Combating Corruption: On the Interplay between Institutional Quality and Social Trust," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 135-159.
    2. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    3. Lambert-Mogiliansky, Ariane & Sonin, Konstantin & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Are Russian commercial courts biased? Evidence from a bankruptcy law transplant," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 254-277, June.
    4. Kenneth S. Chan & Xianxiang Xu & Yuanhua Gao, 2015. "The China Growth Miracle: The Role of the Formal and the Informal Institutions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 63-90, January.
    5. Todaro, Michael P, 1969. "A Model for Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 138-148, March.
    6. Dang, Duc Anh & Dang, Kim Khoi & Dang, Vuong Anh & Vu, Thi Lan, 2020. "The effects of trust and land administration on economic outcomes: Evidence from Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    7. Xu, Yiqing & Yao, Yang, 2015. "Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(2), pages 371-391, May.
    8. Rongzhu Ke & Weiying Zhang, 2003. "Trust in China: A Cross-Regional Analysis," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-586, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    9. Tian, Chuanhao & Luo, Yichen & Teng, Yu, 2024. "Land certification, tenure security and off-farm employment: Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    10. Song, Mingjie & Wu, Yuling & Chen, Lu, 2020. "Does the land titling program promote rural housing land transfer in China? Evidence from household surveys in Hubei Province," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    11. Jianying Wang & Yumei Xu & Lilin Zou & Ying Wang, 2021. "Does Culture Affect Farmer Willingness to Transfer Rural Land? Evidence from Southern Fujian, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    12. Wei Cui, 2017. "Social Trust, Institution, and Economic Growth: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(6), pages 1243-1261, June.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12319 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Mintewab Bezabih & Andrea Mannberg & Eyerusalem Siba, 2014. "The land certification program and off-farm employment in Ethiopia," GRI Working Papers 168, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    15. 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.
    16. Brousseau,Éric & Glachant,Jean-Michel (ed.), 2008. "New Institutional Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521876605, August.
    17. Brousseau,Éric & Glachant,Jean-Michel (ed.), 2008. "New Institutional Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700160, August.
    18. Zhao, Xiaoxue, 2020. "Land and labor allocation under communal tenure: Theory and evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    19. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 903-937, October.
    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. Guokui Wang & Yangyang Li & Guoqin Wu, 2025. "Risk Aversion Mediates the Impact of Environmental Change Perceptions on Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies: A PLS-SEM Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-19, October.

    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. Sha, Wenbiao, 2023. "The political impacts of land expropriation in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Khalid Sekkat & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The formal and informal institutional framework of capital accumulation," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, August.
    3. Lin, Xin & Hui, Eddie Chi-man & Cong, Zhenglong & Shen, Jianfu, 2026. "Solving coordination failures: Collective land transfer rights and rural entrepreneurship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    4. Lei Xu & Shixiang Chen & Shuliu Tian, 2022. "The Mechanism of Land Registration Program on Land Transfer in Rural China: Considering the Effects of Livelihood Security and Agricultural Management Incentives," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-25, August.
    5. Sylvain Rossiaud, 2014. "Opening the upstream oil industry to private companies," Working Papers halshs-00960681, HAL.
    6. Sylvain Rossiaud, 2015. "L’ouverture de l’amont pétrolier à des compagnies privées. Un cadre d’analyse en termes d’économie des coûts de transaction," Post-Print hal-01162793, HAL.
    7. Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta, 2010. "Editors’ Introduction," Chapters, in: Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Locatelli, Catherine & Rossiaud, Sylvain, 2011. "A neoinstitutionalist interpretation of the changes in the Russian oil model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5588-5597, September.
    9. Wu, Wenfeng & Firth, Michael & Rui, Oliver M., 2014. "Trust and the provision of trade credit," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 146-159.
    10. Xu, Guangyu & Chen, Huang, 2025. "Inclusive growth dilemma: Weighing the pros and cons of land market reform," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Kryeziu Liridon & Coşkun Recai, 2018. "Political and Economic Institutions and Economic Performance: Evidence from Kosovo," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 13(2), pages 84-99, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Li, Yuanshun & Liu, Liang & Li, Xinyuan & Zhang, Aoran, 2025. "From social networks to sustainable solutions: Unpacking the influence of social capital on green innovation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    14. Yoshiharu Oritani, 2010. "Public governance of central banks: an approach from new institutional economics," BIS Working Papers 299, Bank for International Settlements.
    15. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    16. Huiguang Chen & Wojciech J. Florkowski & Zhongyuan Liu, 2025. "Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: Does Rural Land Still Matter?," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-22, April.
    17. Der-Fang Hung, 2015. "Sustained Competitive Advantage and Organizational Inertia: The Cost Perspective of Knowledge Management," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(4), pages 769-789, December.
    18. Wu, Ziqi & Xiao, Yi & Zhang, Jian & Wu, Jingyi, 2024. "Justice Reform and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1190-1203.
    19. Tang, Can & Zhao, Zhong, 2022. "Informal institution meets child development," MERIT Working Papers 2022-032, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    20. Wang, Yidi & Gu, Hongmei, 2024. "Impacts of trust on the cost of debt financing: The perspectives of in-group trust and out-group trust," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:3:p:613-:d:1612166. 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 The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (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.