Land tenure reform and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China

Min Liu, Liesbeth Dries, Wim Heijman, Xueqin Zhu, Xiangzheng Deng and Jikun Huang

China Economic Review, 2019, vol. 55, issue C, 181-198

Abstract: Since the start of the land tenure reform in the pastoral areas of China in the 1980s, grassland use rights have increasingly been assigned to individual households. However, this period has also been accompanied by extensive grassland degradation in China, which has raised the question of whether a tragedy of privatisation has occurred. This paper investigates the impact of land tenure reform on the changes in grassland condition, using data from 60 counties in Inner Mongolia between 1985 and 2008. A fixed effects model is employed to control for time-invariant factors. Two alternative model specifications in terms of land tenure reform and time-variant factors are conducted to verify the robustness of the estimation results. The results show that land tenure reform did not affect the grassland condition significantly, and the major drivers of grassland degradation include the land use change and the increase in market demand (meat prices). Thereby, we provide empirical evidence that the privatisation of grasslands did not cause grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China.

Keywords: Land tenure reform; Privatisation; Grassland degradation; Fixed effects model; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q11 Q15 Q18 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:55:y:2019:i:c:p:181-198

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2019.04.006

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