Property rights, resource reallocation and welfare effects: Evidence from a land certification programme

The paper finds that stronger property rights proxied by land certification reform result in resource reallocation and improve the welfare of rural households. Using the implementation of the land certification programme in China as a quasi-natural experiment, the study shows that households that obtained land certificates are 19 % more likely to rent out their agricultural land , 14 % more likely to allocate household workers to non-agricultural sectors and 13 % more likely to have migrant workers , which improves household income and consumption in rural China. In contrast, the study finds that the land reform did not affect household’s land renting-in, and the average cultivated area of rural households declines after the reform. • Land certification reform boosts land rent-out, non-agricultural jobs and migration in rural China. • The land reform raises rural families' income and consumption. • The reform has no effect on household land rent-in, and farmers' cultivated area declines.