国发院-经济学院宏观经济学workshop: Mobility Frictions and Misallocation: An Analysis of China's Land Tenure System

Title：Mobility Frictions and Misallocation: An Analysis of China's Land Tenure System

Speaker：Chaoran Chen (York University)

时间：2021年3月19日（周五）10:00-12:00 am

形式：线上线下同时进行

线下：朗润园512教室

线上：

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会议号：955 4664 7307

密码：543085

Abstract：We study the role of insecure land tenure in China for the sectoral reallocation away from agriculture and the out-migration of workers from rural to urban areas. We argue that weak land rights in China not only depress agricultural productivity but also operate as an implicit migration cost. We develop an equilibrium quantitative framework of family-member occupational and location choice, featuring idiosyncratic migration costs and frictional land markets. Using rich individual-level panel data from China on land use, sectoral, and locational choices we separately estimate implicit migration costs associated with land frictions from other sectoral and locational labor mobility costs. We find that in the absence of land rental frictions more than half of rural families would rent out their land and 1/5 would migrate to urban areas. We find that those that migrate are younger, more productive workers. Due to the interaction of selection and the reallocation of land from older, less productive operators to more productive operators with a comparative advantage in farming, agricultural productivity increases 14%. Over time we find that land frictions eased, and the role of other migration frictions became more important.

About the speaker:Chaoran-CV