This paper examines the influences of off-farm labor participation and land tenure security on land rental market development in rural China. Using data from China, we are able to show that households with more migrant workers and local off-farm workers are more likely to rent out their land and less likely to rent in land. We also find that full-scale reallocation (FR) apparently promotes household land rental activity while partial-scale reallocation (PR) has a negative effect on household land rental participation. This finding may be attributable to the fact that egalitarian rule in the process of FR creates a mismatch between land holding and household farm endowment while efficient PR meets actual land demand of household by transferring land from low intensive users to high inten...[ Read more ]

This paper examines the influences of off-farm labor participation and land tenure security on land rental market development in rural China. Using data from China, we are able to show that households with more migrant workers and local off-farm workers are more likely to rent out their land and less likely to rent in land. We also find that full-scale reallocation (FR) apparently promotes household land rental activity while partial-scale reallocation (PR) has a negative effect on household land rental participation. This finding may be attributable to the fact that egalitarian rule in the process of FR creates a mismatch between land holding and household farm endowment while efficient PR meets actual land demand of household by transferring land from low intensive users to high intensive ones.