Research on the influence of transaction costs and social capital on the circulation channels of ecological products in rocky desertification areas.

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Circulation has always been an important research topic in ecological agriculture. The connotation of production and marketing is not only the economic connection, but also the social interaction. Starting from the perspective of transaction costs and social capital, this study attempts to take the Karst rocky desertification management areas as the study area, and by way of the field interviews and literature methods, and through sorting, induction, conceptual cross-comparison, and repeated inferences, to summarize the circumstances and contexts of the five distribution channels of ecological products in the study areas, with the aim of discussing the correlation between transaction costs, social capital, and the market distribution models of ecological products. It is discovered that (1) the intervention of non-economic factors, which play an important role and function in economic activities and can effectively reduce transaction costs and promote the circulation of social capital, forming a closer cooperation relationship, is the key to the production and marketing of ecological products. (2) It innovatively proposes the bonding, bridging, and linking social capital types to explain the social relationship between the parties under the distribution channel of ecological products, which are divided into, based on the closeness from low to high, the bonding, linking, and bridging types. (3) In product distribution, the higher the social capital circulation is, the more transparent the information exchange of market distribution channels would be, and the lower the transaction costs for both parties would become. The study attempts to provide theoretical support for the construction of the full industrial chain of ecological products for Karst rocky desertification management in Southern China.