Are Villagers Willing to Enter the Rural Collective Construction Land Market under the Arrangement of Transaction Rules?—Evidence from Ezhou, China

Abstract

In China, rural construction land refers to the construction land of townships (town) and villages. The construction land of townships (town) and villages refers to the land used by township (town) and village collective economic organizations and rural individuals to invest or raise funds for various non-agricultural construction. Rural collective construction land is divided into three categories: homestead, land for public welfare public facilities, and land for business. Complete market transaction rules can make the market of rural collective construction land run more openly, fairly, and justly, thus protecting the rights of villagers and collective economic organizations and, at the same time, reducing the transaction cost of the village collective. In this paper, we choose the formal rules of the urban and rural land linking quota trading market in Ezhou, Hubei Province, China, to analyze the three dimensions of the market transaction rules and villagers’ willingness. We also provide suggestions for the development of the RCCL market and the improvement of trading rules. The research results of the logistic model show the following: (1) Under the arrangement of the transaction rules of the RCCL, there are high transaction costs, especially labor costs and time costs, so the villagers’ willingness to enter the market is not very strong. (2) Asset specificity affects villagers’ willingness. The larger the area of RCCL involved in the transaction, the higher the transaction cost, the lower the villagers’ willingness to support the RCCL transfer. (3) The greater the uncertainty of the RCCL transaction environment—mainly due to the problems of the openness, equity, and justice of the transaction rules, which lies in the transaction information not being transparent and the income distribution and the pricing being unreasonable, resulting in villagers’ rights being denied—the more the villagers are unwilling to support the RCCL entering the market. Therefore, we suggest that more open, fair, and just trading rules of the RCCL market should be formulated to protect the security of villagers’ property rights. Moreover, the land value should be displayed reasonably, which can also standardize the good trading order and trading environment, thus making the market development more effective and stable. Our work provides some insights for improving the efficiency of the land market, which will contribute to the development of the worldwide RCCL market.