Public and self-organized land readjustment in rural China − A comparison

The role of land readjustment for urban and rural development has attracted more and more attention worldwide. Research on how land readjustment can be organized most effectively, however, is still in its infancy. This paper firstly develops a framework for comparing different organization modes of land readjustment based on transaction cost economics. It then introduces and compares two different modes of land readjustment that have recently been developed in China, i.e., a public mode and a self-organized mode. We argue, and provide evidence from two case studies in Zhejiang Province and in Sichuan Province, that the (mis)fit between the transaction attributes of land readjustment and the adopted readjustment mode greatly affects their performance. Our findings are intended to serve as a reference both for further research and for policy making on land readjustment.