Short-term or long-term? New insights into rural collectives' perceptions of Land Value Capture within China's rural land marketization reform

Abstract

Exploring the short-term and long-term interests is relevant towards understanding the perceptions of rural collectives around Land Value Capture (LVC) changes caused by land marketization. So far, research has focused too much on the short-term interest, arguing that rural collectives often show positive perceptions because of their LVC gains. However, rural collective perceptions cannot be sufficiently explored if the long-term interest is neglected. This paper attampts to answer “Which kind of interest dominates the perceptions of rural collectives around LVC changes caused by rural land marketization reform?” Empirical answers come from a Chinese case study that varies in rural collectives' types, space, and institutional settings (modes). Data were collected employing 95 semi-structured interviews out of 430 rural land transactions in five counties/districts piloting rural land marketization reform. Within a mixed-method, the qualitative analysis was used as a predominant method in this study. In contrast to the literature, these results indicate that the perceptions of some rural collectives are not so positive, especially if the ‘rural land stock cooperative system’ has not been put in place yet. The reason for this is that rural collectives focus on the long-term interest rather than on the short-term interest. These findings shed new light on ongoing debates about future trends regarding the collectives.