Performance Evaluation of Industrial Land Policy in China

Xinqi Zheng,Lina Lv,Yecui Hu,Bing Geng,Xiang Wu

doi:10.3390/su6084823

Xinqi Zheng, Lina Lv + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su6084823

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Abstract

Rapid industrialization, as one of the main driving forces promoting sustainable economic growth, has increased the area of industrial land use significantly. Industrial land use manifests that the competition between it and other kinds of land use is growing. During the last decade in China, many targeted industrial land use policies have been enacted to stimulate appropriate industrial land use and to promote healthy economic development. However, it is difficult for scholars and governments of rapidly developing countries to judge and evaluate the performance of such policies. Based on statistical data gathered over almost 10 years and an idea called “industrial land equivalent” (ILE), this paper analyzes the contribution made by the implementation of industrial land use policy to economic development, using a Cobb-Douglas production function by which to quantify the influence of land institutions and land regulation systems. The result of the study shows that factors, such as industrial land, labor and capital, all play an important role in GDP growth. Additionally, it is found that industrial land institutions and regulation systems have a strongly positive influence on economic development. It was also found that the influence of policy in eastern China is greater than that in the west and that repeated, short-term land regulation has a negative effect on the economy. Therefore, it is profoundly important for the Chinese economy that a stable and durable industrial land use policy be maintained as the industrial center migrates to the Midwest. The research philosophy and method offered by this paper have great significance for the quantitative evaluation of policy performance.

Highlights

Since the beginning of the period of economic reform in China known as “Reform and Opening up” (1978), China has experienced a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization
The area of industrial land use, which is closely related to economic development, is to some extent affected by policy
The results showed that the adjustment of industrial land use policy will lead to uneven industrial development and even require adjustment of its structure [10]

Summary

Introduction

Since the beginning of the period of economic reform in China known as “Reform and Opening up” (1978), China has experienced a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization. In order to attain the goal of sustainable social economic growth, it is important to establish a way of satisfying the need for land during the urbanization and industrialization process, whilst affecting occupied areas of farmland as little as possible. The policy of industrial land subdivision promotes industrial development and satisfies the national conditions prevailing at that time. With the rapid expansion of industrial land, the dual structure of urban and rural land use make different kinds of contradiction arise, which include the mass occupation of farmland, the idle and low efficiency of land use and some local governments in pursuit of GDP and low land prices selling the land to enterprise use, resulting in the loss of national assets. The State Council enacted a policy called Circular of the State Council on Intensifying the Land Control (2006), according to which “industrial land must be allocated by way of bidding, auction or listing, and the price of land should not be below the standard floor price”

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