Land development right and collective ownership in China

Urban–rural link (URL), a popular land use policy among Chinese local governments, allows urban development of the same or a smaller area than peasants' house sites that are converted back into farmland. It is often regarded as a form of transfer of development rights (TDR). Based on detailed analysis of local governments, villages and peasants, this article finds that local government is the de facto owner of development rights and the only winner in URL. URL strengthens collective ownership by weakening peasants' private land use rights. Overall, URL is an efficient approach to the externality problem caused by farmland protection policy, but it is problematic from a broader perspective, especially from the property rights perspective.