IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v6y2014i6p3400-3430d36554.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Land-Development Offset Policies in the Quest for Sustainability: What Can China Learn from Germany?

Author

Listed:
  • Rong Tan

    (Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University, Yuhangtang Road, 866, Hangzhou 310058, China)

  • Rongyu Wang

    (Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University, Yuhangtang Road, 866, Hangzhou 310058, China)

  • Thomas Sedlin

    (Law and Economics Faculty & Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University Greifswald, Soldmannstr. 15, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany)

Abstract

Land-development offset policies consist of measures that require compensation to be made for the negative impact of land development on agricultural production, ecological and environmental conservation, and the sustainability of economic and social development. However, when such policies are inappropriately designed, unexpected problems can result. This paper describes certain land-development offset policies that have recently been implemented in China, with a particular emphasis on three such policies: the Balancing Policy, the Linkage Policy, and the Integrated Policy. These well-intentioned environmental policies have led to unexpected ecological, social, and cultural problems. This paper also describes the core of German land-development policy, which features a distinctive compensation system that has been employed since the 1970s, and compares Chinese and German land-development policies to highlight differences in three main areas: policy purposes, governance structures, and fundamental institutions. The comparisons might help explain the unexpected outcomes in China, and they also lead to land-development offset policy recommendations for China in the near future.

Suggested Citation

  • Rong Tan & Rongyu Wang & Thomas Sedlin, 2014. "Land-Development Offset Policies in the Quest for Sustainability: What Can China Learn from Germany?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(6), pages 1-31, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:6:y:2014:i:6:p:3400-3430:d:36554
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/6/3400/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/6/3400/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolfgang Wende & Wera Wojtkiewicz & Ilke Marschall & Stefan Heiland & Torsten Lipp & Markus Reinke & Peter Schaal & Catrin Schmidt, 2012. "Putting the Plan into Practice: Implementation of Proposals for Measures of Local Landscape Plans," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 483-500.
    2. Tan, Rong & Qu, Futian & Heerink, Nico & Mettepenningen, Evy, 2011. "Rural to urban land conversion in China — How large is the over-conversion and what are its welfare implications?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 474-484.
    3. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
    4. Konrad Hagedorn, 2008. "Particular requirements for institutional analysis in nature-related sectors," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 35(3), pages 357-384, September.
    5. Ho, Peter, 2005. "Institutions in Transition: Land Ownership, Property Rights, and Social Conflict in China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199280698.
    6. Ronald Coase & Ning Wang, 2012. "How China Became Capitalist," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-01937-0, October.
    7. Jieming Zhu, 2002. "Urban Development under Ambiguous Property Rights: A Case of China’s Transition Economy," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 41-57, March.
    8. Arild Vatn, 2005. "Institutions and the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2826.
    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. Wang, Rongyu & Tan, Rong, 2020. "Efficiency and distribution of rural construction land marketization in contemporary China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. Huan Li & Yehua Dennis Wei & Yuemin Ning, 2016. "Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Urban Systems in China during Rapid Urbanization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Hua Li & Dan Su & Yu Cao & Jiayi Wang & Yu Cao, 2022. "Optimizing the Compensation Standard of Cultivated Land Protection Based on Ecosystem Services in the Hangzhou Bay Area, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Tianxiao Zhou & Rong Tan & Thomas Sedlin, 2018. "Planning Modes for Major Transportation Infrastructure Projects (MTIPs): Comparing China and Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-23, September.
    5. Rongyu Wang & Rong Tan, 2018. "Rural Renewal of China in the Context of Rural-Urban Integration: Governance Fit and Performance Differences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.
    6. Wang, Qingri & Hu, Hongwei & Hu, Rumei, 2024. "Local government behavior in rural construction land marketization in China: An archetype analysis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    7. Fei Wang & Degang Yang & Changjian Wang & Xinhuan Zhang, 2015. "The Effect of Payments for Ecosystem Services Programs on the Relationship of Livelihood Capital and Livelihood Strategy among Rural Communities in Northwestern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-21, July.
    8. Tan, Rong & Wang, Rongyu & Heerink, Nico, 2020. "Liberalizing rural-to-urban construction land transfers in China: Distribution effects," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Changsheng Xiong & Yu Tian & Xue Liu & Rong Tan & Qiaolin Luan, 2022. "The Different Impacts of Airports on the Ecological Environment under Distinct Institutional Contexts," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-18, February.
    10. Catharina Druckenbrod & Volker Beckmann, 2018. "Production-Integrated Compensation in Environmental Offsets—A Review of a German Offset Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-22, November.
    11. Yan Sun & Xiaojun Song & Jing Ma & Haochen Yu & Xiaoping Ge & Gang-Jun Liu & Fu Chen, 2021. "Assessing the Effectiveness for Achieving Policy Objectives of Land Consolidation in China: Evidence from Project Practices in Jiangsu Province from 2001 to 2017," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Jinlong Gao & Yehua Dennis Wei & Wen Chen & Komali Yenneti, 2015. "Urban Land Expansion and Structural Change in the Yangtze River Delta, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-27, July.
    13. Fu Chen & Man Yu & Fengwu Zhu & Chunzhu Shen & Shaoliang Zhang & Yongjun Yang, 2018. "Rethinking Rural Transformation Caused by Comprehensive Land Consolidation: Insight from Program of Whole Village Restructuring in Jiangsu Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-16, June.

    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. Konrad Hagedorn, 2013. "Natural resource management: the role of cooperative institutions and governance," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 2(1), pages 101-121, September.
    2. Wang, Rongyu & Tan, Rong, 2020. "Patterns of revenue distribution in rural residential land consolidation in contemporary China: The perspective of property rights delineation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. Stephan Bartke & Reimund Schwarze, 2021. "The Economic Role and Emergence of Professional Valuers in Real Estate Markets," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Rongyu Wang & Rong Tan, 2018. "Rural Renewal of China in the Context of Rural-Urban Integration: Governance Fit and Performance Differences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Padmanabhan, Martina & Jungcurt, Stefan, 2012. "Biocomplexity—conceptual challenges for institutional analysis in biodiversity governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 70-79.
    6. Thiel, Andreas & Schleyer, Christian & Plieninger, Tobias, 2011. "Characteristics of resources and the provision of biodiversity and ecosystem services in Germany: the cases of fruit tree meadows and wolf protection," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 116082, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Zhun Chen & Yuefei Zhuo & Guan Li & Zhongguo Xu, 2021. "What Drives Different Governance Modes and Marketization Performance for Collective Commercial Construction Land in Rural China?," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-23, March.
    8. Bartke, Stephan, 2015. "The economic role of valuers in real property markets," UFZ Discussion Papers 13/2015, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    9. Xianlei Ma & Justus Wesseler & Nico Heerink & Futian Qu, 2013. "Land Tenure Reforms and Land Conservation Investments in China ¨C What Does Real Option Value Theory Tell Us?," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 3, pages 19-33, August.
    10. Phan, Thu-Ha Dang & Brouwer, Roy & Davidson, Marc David, 2017. "A Global Survey and Review of the Determinants of Transaction Costs of Forestry Carbon Projects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1-10.
    11. Achim Schlüter & Insa Theesfeld, 2010. "The grammar of institutions: The challenge of distinguishing between strategies, norms, and rules," Rationality and Society, , vol. 22(4), pages 445-475, November.
    12. Blackstock, K.L. & Novo, P. & Byg, A. & Creaney, R. & Juarez Bourke, A. & Maxwell, J.L. & Tindale, S.J. & Waylen, K.A., 2021. "Policy instruments for environmental public goods: Interdependencies and hybridity," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    13. Roggero, Matteo, 2015. "Adapting institutions: exploring climate adaptation through institutional economics and set relations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 114-122.
    14. Oliver Maaß & Philipp Grundmann, 2018. "Governing Transactions and Interdependences between Linked Value Chains in a Circular Economy: The Case of Wastewater Reuse in Braunschweig (Germany)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-29, April.
    15. Mike, Károly, 2016. "Merre vezessen a magyar kapitalizmus útja?. Látkép Ronald Coase világítótornyából [Which course for Hungary s capitalism?. A view from Ronald Coase s lighthouse]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 597-614.
    16. 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).
    17. Gatzweiler, Franz W. & Volkmann, Jorg, 2007. "Beyond Economic Efficiency in Biodiversity Conservation," Institutional Change in Agriculture and Natural Resources Discussion Papers 7704, Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    18. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2021. "Entrepreneurship prompts institutional change in developing economies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 33-53, March.
    19. Wang, Rongyu & Tan, Rong, 2020. "Efficiency and distribution of rural construction land marketization in contemporary China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Bhatt, Brijesh & Singh, Anoop, 2020. "Stakeholders’ role in distribution loss reduction technology adoption in the Indian electricity sector: An actor-oriented approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(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:jsusta:v:6:y:2014:i:6:p:3400-3430:d:36554. 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.