Impact pathways of comprehensive land consolidation on rural industrial structure transformation and policy recommendations

Rural industrial prosperity is the foundation of the rural revitalization strategy, and rural industrial structure transformation is a critical path to achieve it. Under the background of rural revitalization, comprehensive land consolidation acts as a key driving force for the transformation of rural industrial structure. Based on New Structural Economics theory, this study adopts the fsQCA method and typical surveys in Hubei province to analyze the impact mechanism of comprehensive land consolidation on rural industrial structure transformation.The results indicate that rural industrial structure transformation presents two forms: rationalization and optimization, with two typical combinations: high rationalization-low optimization and low rationalization-high optimization. Comprehensive land consolidation promotes industrial structure transformation through the coordination of factor endowment, capable government actions and effective market, in which the government reduces factor flow costs and the market improves allocation efficiency. There are distinct driving paths for rationalization and optimization, which result from different factor reorganization mechanisms. Industrial structure rationalization relies on the improvement of land, labor and capital endowments, while optimization focuses on innovation factors and industrial chain extension. Finally, this paper proposes that classified guidance should be adopted according to different transformation forms: (1) Based on the differentiated forms of rural industrial structure transformation, classified guidance strategies should be implemented accordingly. (2) Considering the differentiated paths of comprehensive land consolidation driving rural industrial structure transformation, reasonable policy tools, factors reorganization mechanisms, and institutional systems should be supplied for rural industrial structure transformation.