质疑限制农村宅基地流转的正当性 ——兼论宅基地流转试验的初步构想

研究目的：分析农村宅基地流转的正当性和基本模式。研究方法：实证分析法和理论研究法。研究结果：农村宅基地流转有现实的需要，符合法律和社会的公平正义观念，也有一定的法律和政策空间；农村宅基地流转模式多样，各有利弊，需要建立相应的法律和制度支撑。研究结论：应当积极支持和引导农村宅基地流转。     

Towards a theory of policy timing*

The article presents a theory of policy timing that relies on uncertainty and transaction costs to explain the optimal timing and duration of policy reforms. Delaying reforms resolves some uncertainty by gaining valuable information and saves transaction costs. Implementing reforms without waiting increases welfare by adjusting domestic policies to changed market parameters. Optimal policy timing is found by balancing the trade‐off between delaying reforms and implementing reforms without waiting. Our theory offers an explanation of why countries differ with respect to the length of their policy reforms and why applied studies often judge agricultural policies to be inefficient when actually they may not be.     

集体经营性建设用地统筹入市的模式选择

研究目的：比较分析两种集体经营性建设用地统筹入市模式的治理效率,为深化集体经营性建设用地市场化治理实践提供参考。研究方法：基于案例的交易成本比较分析。研究结果：不确定性是影响统筹入市模式选择的关键因素。村集体自组织的土地联营公司模式比政府主导的土地整备模式,更适于处理较高不确定性引致的交易成本,在促成集体行动、避免事后违反协议、促进收益分配公平等方面表现更好。研究结论：集体经营性建设用地入市的交易属性与所采用的治理模式之间的匹配程度决定统筹入市的治理效率。建议在农村经济较为发达的地区,发挥政府协调引导作用,鼓励各村集体在充分协商的基础上,成立联合委员会或者土地股份公司,合作开展集体经营性建设用地的统筹入市。     

Land Market Imperfections and Agricultural Policy Impacts in the New EU Member States: A Partial Equilibrium Analysis

This article analyses how transaction costs and imperfect competition in the land market affect the welfare effects of agricultural subsidies in the new Eastern Member States of the European Union. Benefits of land subsidies end up with landowners in new Eastern Member States also with imperfections in the new Eastern Member States land markets. With unequal access to subsidies, small tenant farmers may even lose out from the subsidies. Decoupling of payments shifts policy rents to farmers, but constrains productivity-enhancing restructuring. Using reserve entitlements to mitigate this effect reduces the intended benefits on distortions and target efficiency.     

Private transaction costs of participation in water quality improvement programs for Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Extent,causes and policy implications

The direct private cost to landholders of participating in programs that result in improved farming activities (IFAs) is generally well understood. However, the private indirect or transaction costs, such as the cost of a landholder's time and the expense to learn about IFAs and apply for assistance to implement these changes on‐farm, are not so well understood. Where these have been studied, they have been shown to be extensive. We assess the extent and causes of private transaction costs incurred by sugarcane growers participating in the Australian Government's Reef Rescue scheme which pays farmers to adopt environmentally beneficial farm management practices. Utilising a mail‐out‐mail‐back survey of 110 growers, we found that the average total transaction cost per farm of participating in the program was AU$8389. The average total transaction costs per farm as a percentage of the average funding provided was 38 per cent. We also assessed which type of improved farming activity (soil, nutrient, pest or water management) generated the greatest transaction costs and how landholder characteristics such as bounded rationality, opportunism and social connection impacted on the extent of transaction costs.     

Assessing the effectiveness of rural credit policy on the adoption of integrated crop-livestock systems in Brazil

This study analyzes the effectiveness of rural credit policy to increase the adoption of ICLS. Analyzes are based on a survey with 175 farmers in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Our estimates suggest that rural credit has positive and relevant impacts on the adoption of ICLS. In turn, the adoption of these systems may also involve investments in fixed capital and increases in operational costs, which create additional demand for rural credit. Other factors, such as access to extension policy, production scale, ex-ante perceptions, and market infrastructure also explain ICLS adoption. The access to rural credit policy is also determined by dependence on farm income, farmer’s perception of transaction costs, and supply of credit in the municipality. The study finally discusses important implications for the devising of rural credit policies and the diffusion of sustainable production systems in developing countries.     

Modeling Farm Households' Price Responses in the Presence of Transaction Costs and Heterogeneity in Labor Markets

We develop a farm household model to analyze price responses of farm households. This model incorporates various types of transaction costs as well as labor heterogeneity. Nonproportional variable transaction costs or labor heterogeneity imply that production and consumption decisions become nonseparable, even when the household buys or sells labor. An empirical model is estimated using data from Midwest Poland. The results show that nonproportional variable transaction costs and labor heterogeneity significantly influence household behavior. Not all price elasticities, however, change significantly if these are neglected.     

Smallholder production structure and rural roads in Africa: the case of Nakuru District, Kenya

Data from a 1998 survey of farming households in Kenya is used to estimate the effects of poor rural road infrastructure (and high market access costs) on the structure of smallholder farm production. Simultaneous estimation of cost and input share equations reveals rational responses by farmers to high access costs. In the expected continued absence of major investments in rural infrastructure in countries such as Kenya, the policy challenge is to identify and catalyse institutional innovations that reduce a range of transaction costs, increase financial liquidity, increase social capital, and reduce risk.     

Market Emergence and Transition: Arbitrage, Transaction Costs, and Autarky in China's Grain Markets

Using trimonthly Chinese provincial grain prices from 1988 to 1995, we estimate a parity-bounds model of interregional trade for four subperiods to characterize how multiple aspects of market performance change during the process of economic transition. For each period, we estimate the extent to which arbitrage opportunities are realized by traders, the transaction costs between location pairs, and the likelihood that regions do not trade. Trade restrictions cannot explain the pattern of uneven market development over time. Infrastructure bottlenecks, managerial incentive reforms, and production specialization policies, all were likely important factors affecting market performance.     

威廉姆森分析范式下农地经营权抵押贷款问题研究——以山东枣庄市为例

山东枣庄是我国较早开展土地产权制度改革的试点城市,其土地经营权抵押贷款的改革尤为突出。在实践过程中,通过剥离农地经营权、创建担保公司等改革手段,为农地规模化经营提供融资保障。但在实践过程中,混合治理结构带来的交易成本过高问题也渐渐显露。本文引入威廉姆森范式理论,对枣庄市农地经营权抵押贷款中的治理结构、交易性质以及交易频率等进行了分析,得出一体化的治理结构可有效降低交易成本,最后从一体化组织构建、行政关系、合作方式与原则以及风险防范等角度提出一体化治理结构的政策建议。     

An Organisational Discussion of Incomplete Contracting and Transaction Costs in Conservation Contracts

Conservation in the agricultural sector is difficult to achieve. A primary complicating factor in achieving conservation is the large number of public good environmental services provided by large numbers of individuals acting under diverse economic and ecological conditions. The complexity of the problem implies that additional consideration must be given to transaction cost economics and the theory of incomplete contracting. Drawing on insights from organisational economics, this paper argues that conservation policy and research could be improved with explicit consideration of the effects of ‘holdup problems’, transaction costs and trust on the provision of conservation services. ‘Bottom‐up’ approaches are promising as they directly incorporate these organisational issues, and the paper concludes with an example of a ‘bottom‐up’ conservation programme, the Ontario Environmental Farm Planning programme.     

Transaction Costs and Cattle Marketing: The Information Content of Seller-Provided Presale Data at Bull Auctions

At sales of breeding bulls, prospective buyers have strong incentives to undertake presale measurement activities. To reduce these transaction costs, sellers often provide information on sale bulls. We examine the information content of two measures of the expected performance of the bulls and find that within a given herd, older, simpler measures of performance contain more information about prices (from buyers' perspectives) than newer, more sophisticated measures known as expected progeny differences, or EPDs. We also find, however, that buyers appear to pay considerable attention to annual changes in herd-average EPD values when comparing animals from different sellers.     

公共政策及其响应:基于农民信任机制的解释——以农地确权政策为例

本文基于“交易类型—公平感知—政治信任”的研究框架,分析中国农村公共政策的响应逻辑。公共政策响应依赖于政治信任,较高水平的政治信任能够降低政策实施的交易成本。其内在机制在于,各层级政府与个体在政策响应过程中构成了康芒斯式的交易类型组合,进而催生个体产生不同的公平诉求,最终影响个体对各层级政府的政治信任。本文以农地确权政策为例,将政治信任作为农户响应农业政策的代理变量并使用广东省农户调研数据进行实证检验。结果表明,结果公平、程序公平、信息公平和人际公平均显著提升了农户对地方政府的政治信任;人际公平显著提升了农户对中央政府的政治信任;整体公平感知对农户的地方政府信任有显著正向影响。实证结果在控制住人际信任、家庭政治资本与社会网络、村庄禀赋与历史因素后仍然稳健。本文的政策启示是,在农村公共政策实施中,鼓励多维公平的实现,谨慎对待政策推进的效率攀比,这对提升农民的政治信任并激发社会活力具有重要现实意义。     

福建省林权交易中心的SWOT分析——基于福建省永安、沙县、尤溪、邵武四县市的调查

分析了福建省林权交易中心的发展现状,并结合典型县市实地调研的结果对福建省林权交易中心进行了SWOT分析,认为交易中心具有交易平台相对规范、交易过程相对透明、交易程序相对完整等优势;但也存在着交易程序较复杂、交易费用较高、影响力较弱等劣势;同时还对交易中心所面临的机会和威胁进行了分析;最后提出了发展林权交易中心的建议。     

The influence of diversification on long-term viability of the agricultural sector

We estimate the impact of diversification on the performance of farm businesses using measures of economic viability among farms in Scotland and Sweden. We derive indicators of viability using national level accounting surveys for the period 2000–2012 and account for short-term and long-term effects within our estimates of viability.A higher proportion of Scottish farms emerge as being more short-term and long-term viable than Swedish farms. This could, we propose, be due to emphasis on enhancing farm viability within Scottish planning for rural development, compared to Sweden which emphasized productivity and environmental enhancement. Moreover, for both countries the trend in viability is relatively stable until 2007, when both panels begin to display the impact of policy and market change.Findings based on a multinomial logistic regression indicate that farms which run additional ventures outside traditional agriculture, and are diversified in the sense that they obtain revenue from two or more agricultural enterprises, are more viable compared to specialized agricultural units. Other factors which affect viability were found to be structural, biophysical and institutional, specifically the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003. However the significance and magnitude of these effects differ across the two countries. Consequently, these results seem to imply the importance of emphasizing non-specialized agricultural activities within rural development policy and, moreover, informs the rationale behind proposed redistributions of CAP payments.     

基于交易成本理论的森林碳汇交易研究

以新制度经济学交易费用理论为基础,把森林碳汇项目交易成本分为事前交易及事后交易成本,并细分为8项成本费用。通过分析各项交易成本的影响因子,建立了森林碳汇交易成本的函数关系式,并在交易成本框架下指出了森林碳汇服务项目交易过程存在的问题,据此提出了降低交易成本的途径。     

Rural decline or restructuring? Implications for sustainability transitions in rural China

With the increase in climate change and increasing social concerns about environmental deterioration, sustainability has become a hot topic in both natural and social research. Nowadays, sustainable cities are one of the focal points, while rural areas have been disregarded. In fact, rural areas have been suffering from environmental degradation for decades. Thus, sustainability transitions in both urban and rural areas should be given commensurate emphasis. In this paper, we provide an overview of rural evolution worldwide and attempt to explore alternative approaches for enhancing rural sustainability. As depicted in the literature, rural evolution is multifaceted. For a long time, depopulation and demographic aging have been like chronic diseases torturing rural areas. Although there were some bright spots of rural repopulation and economic restructuring, they were not mainstream of rural development. Based on the existing research, we established a conceptual framework and analyzed the rural evolution paradigm from a geographic perspective. We found that rural composition determined rural architecture, while rural architecture affected rural functioning. Changes in rural functioning formed the rural evolution trend. Since rural development was also influenced by external factors, both self-organization and governmental intervention were found to be alternative approaches to guiding rural transitions. We took the case study of Tengtou village to exemplify the sustainable pathways of a rural transition. The case study indicated that national policies were the fundamental impetus for rural transformation, while self-organization played a more important role. We hope that our study will shed new light on policy orientations and rural transitions.     

交易成本对农户农产品销售方式选择的影响——基于对柑橘种植农户的调查

基于交易成本理论,利用对湖北省宜昌市柑橘种植农户的调查数据,通过建立Logistic模型,本文重点分析了交易成本对农户柑橘销售方式选择的影响。研究结果表明,交易成本是影响农户农产品销售方式选择的重要因素,其中,反映信息成本的是否了解柑橘市场行情变量、反映谈判成本的农户对中间商报价公平程度的看法变量对农户选择自行销售方式有显著的正向影响;反映信息成本的是否通过中间商了解柑橘价格变量、反映谈判成本的自行销售同等级柑橘相比于通过中间商销售的销售价格差异变量、反映执行成本的农户到最近农产品市场的距离变量对农户选择自行销售方式有显著的负向影响;另外,户主受教育程度、家庭是否有成员从事非农产业这两个反映个体特征的变量对农户选择自行销售方式也有显著的影响,且其影响方向为正。     

Insights into a black box! Comparison of organizational modes and their monetary implications for the producers of short rotation coppice (SRC) in Brandenburg/Germany

A substantial change in energy policy in Germany towards the substitution of fossil, nonrenewable energy resources is part of a current political and social process. This change has been accelerated by the government’s decision in summer 2011 to phase out nuclear energy, a direct result of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. As part of this development, new business activities and modes of organization for the provisioning of energy from alternative sources have emerged; one such activity is short rotation coppice (SRC) cultivation on agricultural land. In this paper, we compare the two prevailing organizational modes for SRC: independent production and contract farming. We use a mixed-methods approach to examine these modes from the producers’ point of view in Brandenburg/Germany. First, we give reasons for the producer’s choice between these two modes of organization based on the interviewee’s qualitative assessment of how these modes cope with perceived SRC-related challenges e.g. uncertainties. As economic uncertainty plays a major role in both refusal to adopt SRC and the choice of the mode of organization for SRC production, we secondly model the unknown economic outcome of the independent mode. We thereby give insights into the “black box”. This consists on the one hand of lacking economic figures for an economic comparison of both modes, and on the other hand of the producer’s decision-making process between both modes. For the latter, we use the theoretical approach of transaction costs to display ostensible non-monetary decision factors. Using a known monetary reference for the contract farming mode, we are able firstly to support a comparison of economic factors and secondly to identify and interpret the critical variables whose manifestations and/or changes are decisive for the economic outcome. The modelling results show that neither of the two modes performs better per se. This finding suggests that the weight ascribed to the transaction costs of SRC in each individual producer’s decision-making process is decisive for the producer’s choice of mode.     

Situating community forestry enterprises within New Institutional Economic theory: What are the implications for their organization?

Community forestry enterprises (CFEs) have gained considerable traction with rural development and forestry practitioners as models for community development, poverty alleviation, and conservation. This paper uses New Institutional Economic theory to identify the key organizational features and potential inherent weaknesses of CFEs. NIE theory focuses on arguments of economic efficiency, specifically transaction cost reductions that serve as incentives for collective action by groups of owners. Examples are given to show how the organization of CFEs reduced transaction costs stemming from interactions with industrial loggers and service providers. However, the creation of these community enterprises goes beyond simple transaction cost reductions and economic justifications. Additional unquantifiable benefits, such as self-determination, control over resources that communities have historically used, application of acquired skills, political representation, and application of acquired skills to name a few, are also secured through community ownership. These benefits however do not come without a cost. As enterprises where ownership rights are incomplete or ill-defined and which do not operate with the incentives of investor-owned firms, CFEs have little to no initial capital pool and experience considerable investment limitations due to limited wealth, horizon problems, and unsolved issues with moral hazard vis-à-vis banks. CFEs also face important management and collective decision-making challenges. In spite of their institutional weaknesses, it is apparent that many societies have decided that the benefits of community ownership far outweigh their ownership costs. State intervention and policy have played an important role in building the necessary supportive framework for the development of these enterprises. NIE as a dominant model for understanding alternative entrepreneurial forms was useful for identifying some important aspects of CFEs that, in a profit-driven economy, can constitute weaknesses that place them at a disadvantage with investor-owned firms. This analysis informs where policy should be targeted if CFEs are to be supported and fostered.