Forestland Reform in China: What do the Farmers Want? A Choice Experiment on Farmers’ Property Rights Preferences

摘要

Various decentralization experiments are currently underway in the Chinese forestry sector.However, a key question often ignored by researchers and policy makers is what farmersreally want from reform. This paper addresses this question using a survey-based choiceexperiment. We investigated farmers’ preferences for various property-rights attributes of aforestland contract. We found that farmers are highly concerned with what types of rights acontract provides. Reducing perceived risks of contract termination and introducing apriority right in the renewal of an old contract significantly increase farmers’ marginalwillingness to pay (MWTP) for a forest contract. An extended waiting time for rights toharvest the forest reduces a farmer’s perceived value of a contract. Farmers are alsoconcerned with the tenure length. In one region, the annual willingenss to pay for a 50-yearcontract is even higher than the annual willingness to pay for 25-year contract.