IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v14y2025i4p745-d1624737.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Land Development Rights Increase Agricultural Land Prices? Empirical Evidence from China’s Land Market

Author

Listed:
  • Jiaxin Shi

    (College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China)

  • Wei Dou

    (College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China)

Abstract

This study utilized data from 300 prefecture-level cities in China, spanning from 2000 to 2020, and employed a difference-in-differences (DID) model to investigate the influence of land development rights on agricultural land prices, alongside the mechanisms underlying this relationship. The primary aim of this research was to analyze the manner in which land development rights affect agricultural land prices through the implementation of policies and market forces. Via empirical analysis, the study elucidated the effects of land development rights on agricultural land prices within China. The key findings include the following: (1) Land development rights positively influence the increase in agricultural land prices. (2) Land development rights significantly narrow the urban–rural income disparity at municipal and county levels, which in turn impacts agricultural land prices. (3) The effect of land development rights on agricultural land prices is negatively moderated by regional economic growth. (4) While land development rights significantly enhance the prices of arable land, their impact on sectors such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, and food processing remains minimal. (5) In northern regions and economically underdeveloped areas, land development rights substantially boost agricultural land prices, underscoring their role in fostering local economic development and enhancing land use efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiaxin Shi & Wei Dou, 2025. "Do Land Development Rights Increase Agricultural Land Prices? Empirical Evidence from China’s Land Market," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:4:p:745-:d:1624737
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/745/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/745/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bu, Di & Liao, Yin, 2022. "Land property rights and rural enterprise growth: Evidence from land titling reform in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Feng Deng, 2013. "Land development right and collective ownership in China," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 190-205, June.
    3. Zhang, Han & Zheng, Jinhui & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Zhao, Shikuan & Bouri, Elie, 2024. "How does urban land use efficiency improve resource and environment carrying capacity?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Wang, Han & Wu, Xingyi & Wu, Di & Nie, Xin, 2019. "Will land development time restriction reduce land price? The perspective of American call options," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 75-83.
    5. Du, Jinfeng & Peiser, Richard B., 2014. "Land supply, pricing and local governments' land hoarding in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 180-189.
    6. Jiang, Ronghao & Lin, George C.S., 2021. "Placing China’s land marketization: The state, market, and the changing geography of land use in Chinese cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. Wang, Bo & Li, Fan & Feng, Shuyi & Shen, Tong, 2020. "Transfer of development rights, farmland preservation, and economic growth: a case study of Chongqing’s land quotas trading program," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    8. Mu, Pengyun & Zhang, Shoufu, 2024. "Role of homestead system reform in rural common prosperity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(PB).
    9. Wen, Lanjiao & Chatalova, Lioudmila & Butsic, Van & Hu, Fox ZhiYong & Zhang, Anlu, 2020. "Capitalization of land development rights in rural China: A choice experiment on individuals’ preferences in peri-urban Shanghai," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    10. Lin, Wensheng & Huang, Jikun, 2021. "Impacts of agricultural incentive policies on land rental prices: New evidence from China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    11. Rui Wang, 2009. "The Structure of Chinese Urban Land Prices: Estimates from Benchmark Land Price Data," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 24-38, July.
    12. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    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. Guo, Jingpeng & Zhao, Yinghui & Li, Frank Yonghong & Mao, Kebiao & He, Jinfeng & He, Qiang, 2024. "Developing a land development compensation model for returned land in tract expropriation: Towards a unified urban-rural land market in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Wen, Lanjiao & Yang, Shenjie & Qi, Mengna & Zhang, Anlu, 2024. "How does China’s rural collective commercialized land market run? New evidence from 26 pilot areas, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    3. Ren Yang & Yuancheng Lin, 2022. "Rural spatial transformation and governance from the perspective of land development rights: A case study of Fenghe village in Guangzhou," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 1102-1121, September.
    4. Ya Zhao & Lennon H. T. Choy & Kwong Wing Chau, 2023. "Political Circles and Land Supply for the Service and Industrial Sectors: Evidence from 284 Cities in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Cheng, Jing, 2022. "Analysis of the factors influencing industrial land leasing in Beijing of China based on the district-level data," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    6. Fei Bao & Zhenzhi Zhao, 2022. "“Takeover” and “Activation” Effects of National Strategies for Industrial Relocation—Based on the Perspective of Marketisation of Land Elements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-23, October.
    7. Li, L. & Bao, Helen X.H. & Robinson, Guy M., 2020. "The return of state control and its impact on land market efficiency in urban China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Nie, Xin & Li, Xiaojuan & Lyu, Chengyu & Su, Yanglan & Wang, Han, 2024. "Can ecological compensation based on the transfer of development rights (TDR) improve ecosystem service value? A multi-scenario simulation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Yuyuan Wen & Fangfang Li & Zhiqing Wang, 2025. "Land Resource Allocation and Green Economic Development: Threshold Effect on Local Government Functional Performance in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, February.
    10. Shiguang Peng & Le Wang & Lei Xu, 2023. "Impact of the Marketization of Industrial Land Transfer on Regional Carbon Emission Intensity: Evidence from China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-20, April.
    11. Zhiheng Yang & Chenxi Li & Yongheng Fang, 2020. "Driving Factors of the Industrial Land Transfer Price Based on a Geographically Weighted Regression Model: Evidence from a Rural Land System Reform Pilot in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, January.
    12. Long Cheng & Zhengchun Xu & Jintao Li, 2022. "Promote or Demote? Investigating the Impacts of China’s Transferable Development Rights Program on Farmers’ Income: A Case Study from Chongqing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-20, October.
    13. Shengfu Yang & Shougeng Hu & Weidong Li & Chuanrong Zhang & José A. Torres, 2017. "Spatiotemporal Effects of Main Impact Factors on Residential Land Price in Major Cities of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-16, November.
    14. Song, Malin & Xie, Qianjiao & Chen, Jiandong, 2022. "Effects of government competition on land prices under opening up conditions: A case study of the Huaihe River ecological economic belt," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    15. Alex Hollingsworth & Krzysztof Karbownik & Melissa A. Thomasson & Anthony Wray, 2024. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(7), pages 2201-2238, July.
    16. Dan Pan & Jinlong Zhou & Yi Yu & Shengdong Chen, 2024. "Rural Collective Property Rights System Reform and Urban-Rural Income Gap: A County-Scale Big Data Analysis in China," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(3), pages 21582440241, August.
    17. Kanis Saengchote & Voraprapa Nakavachara & Yishuang Xu, 2023. "Capitalising the Network Externalities of New Land Supply in the Metaverse," Papers 2303.17180, arXiv.org.
    18. Yechan Park & Yuya Sasaki, 2024. "Matching $\leq$ Hybrid $\leq$ Difference in Differences," Papers 2411.07952, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.
    19. Koima, Josephat, 2024. "School electrification and academic outcomes in rural Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    20. Walker, Brigham, 2023. "Price and saliency in health care: When can targeted nudges change behaviors?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    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:4:p:745-:d:1624737. 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.