Exploring the impact of the new round of farmland certification on rural household consumption: empirical evidence from China

Improving the consumption level and optimizing the consumption structure of rural households are the major strategic requirements for building a new development pattern. Farmland certification as the most important institutional arrangement for empowerment and strengthening capabilities is a crucial engine for tapping rural consumption potential, which will have a positive impact on global economic growth. Based on the two periods of unbalanced panel data from the 2017–2019 China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS), this paper empirically investigates the impact of the new round of farmland certification on rural household consumption by using the panel two-way fixed effect model. The results show that: Farmland certification not only fosters the optimization of farmland resources through promoting farmland transfer-out, but also serves to enhance long-term investment in farmland, thereby bolstering the “asset effects” and “wealth effects” for rural households, and ultimately positively affecting their consumption level and structure. Furthermore, from the perspective of the heterogeneous effects of farmland certification on consumption, it affects the secondary-occupation rural households and the second-generation farmers more than the part-time rural households and the first-generation farmers; the impact in the eastern region surpasses that in the central and western regions; and the group with high incomes exceeds that of middle and low-income individuals. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the consumption effect of property rights protection, and adopt appropriate policies for different farmers to improve their consumption.