Fiscal Ecological Cost of Land in China: Estimation and Regional Differences

Abstract

This study explains the fiscal ecological costs of land in China by dividing them into three periods: early ecological cost refers to loss of ecosystem service value after the conversion of agricultural land, mid-term ecological cost refers to land development in urban built-up areas, and later ecological cost refers to the investment cost of increasing the fiscal ecological service function of the land. Using data for 31 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2017, we perform a “link between groups” cluster analysis with SPSS 22.0 statistical software. Squared Euclidean distance is used to analyze land in these provinces. Ecological cost in the early, middle, and late stages is clustered, and the provinces are divided into five areas according to the ecological cost of each stage in absolute terms and as a proportion of land fiscal revenue. The research shows that: (1) the fiscal ecological cost of land in China presents a spatial pattern of “higher in the east than in the west, higher in the south than in the north,” and (2) the cost is highest in the early stage, second highest in the late stage, and lowest in the middle stage. The findings yield differentiated policy recommendations for reducing the fiscal ecological cost of land in different areas.