Does Rural Construction Land Marketization Inhibit State-Owned Industrial Land Transactions? Evidence from Huzhou City, China

Abstract

The market-based allocation of rural construction land is conducive to the revitalization of rural land resources, influences urban and rural land planning, and facilitates urbanization. The rural collective operating construction land entering the market (COCLEM) is a key measure for China’s rural construction land marketization reform, while its impacts on the existing land supply pattern have received little attention. Taking Huzhou City as an example, this paper investigates the impacts of COCLEM on state-owned industrial land (SIL) transactions with Difference-in-Differences (DID) regression models. The results show the following: (1) Given the natural conditions, enterprises’ preferences, and government forces, COCLEM has failed to inhibit the SIL transaction scale. (2) COCLEM contributes to industrial agglomeration and significantly increases the value of SIL. These findings altogether imply that currently, in China, market-based rural construction land transfer is the complement of land administrative allocation. Policy implications are drawn from this analysis to advance further reforms for China’s urban–rural integrated construction land market.