Post-2003 Collective Forest Tenure Reform in Fujian, China: Institutional Diversity and Farmer’s Preferences

China’s post-2003 collective forest tenure reform has drawn substantial attention. Based on the evidence from Fujian Province, this research focuses on three topics that pertain to this reform but have not been sufficiently studied in the literature. Chapter 3 focuses on the diversified approaches that villages developed to change their forest tenure systems. Based on the reform implementation archives of 41 villages, I identify various tenure change approaches and categorize them into two types: tenure form changes and tenure security enhancements. I find that the majority of commercial forests experienced tenure security enhancements instead of tenure form changes in the reform, and the possibilities of experiencing these two types of tenure changes vary across bamboo forests, economic forests and timber forests. Chapter 4 discusses how community commercial timber production is affected by the restructuring of devolving forests from the villagers’ committee to villagers’ groups, which is the major approach to changing forest tenure forms in Fujian. The comparative study based on two cases reveals the mixed effects of this restructuring. By decreasing groups size and decentralizing forest management powers, this restructuring increases the equity of allocating timber revenues and enhances the accountability of forest managers to ordinary farmers. However, this restructuring threatens the long-run efficiency of timber production because villagers’ groups often have weaker organizational capacities than the villagers’ committee. Chapter 5 focuses on the controversy regarding reallocating timber revenues according to demographic changes and discusses the trade-off between equal access and individual rights in the reallocation problem. I find that farmers support reallocating timber revenues to achieve equal access, and such preference pertains to social preferences including altruism and aversion to inequality. However, farmers’ preference for reallocation may be lower if they feel reallocation is difficult to implement. 中国2003年之后的集体林产权改革在学界已经引起诸多关注。基于福建省的经验证据，本研究考察了与本改革相关、但既有文献鲜有关注的三个问题。第三章聚焦于村庄层面上多种多样的林权变革方式。基于41个村庄的林权改革实施档案，笔者识别了各类林权变革方式并将其分为两类：产权形式变化和产权稳定性增加。笔者发现在改革中，多数商品林经历的是产权稳定性增加而非产权形式变革。而且，经历这两种产权变革类型的概率，在竹林、经济林、用材林这三种森林类型之间并不相同。第四章讨论把林权从村委会下放到村民小组这一产权变革方式的影响。对两个村庄的比较案例研究表明，这一制度变革既有正面也有负面影响。通过降低组织规模和下放森林管理权利，这一变革增加了木材收入分配的公平性，并且提高了森林管理者对普通村民的问责性。但是，由于村民小组通常比村委会的组织能力更弱，这一变革危及了木材生产的长期效率。第五章聚焦于集体木材生产中根据人口变化调整木材收入分配的争议，并且讨论了在林权制度设计中如何权衡平等受益与个体权利这两项目标。笔者发现多数农民支持根据人口变化来调整木材收入分配，从而实现平等受益的目标。这种偏好与利他、不平等厌恶等亲社会偏好相关；但是，如果追求平等受益的实施成本较高，农民对平等受益的偏好会降低。Ph.D.2021-11-15 00:00:0