An Evaluation of the Development Performance of China’s Rural Property Rights Transfer Transaction Markets Based on the SBM-DEA Model

Driven by the construction of a unified national market and the rural revitalization strategy, the performance of rural property rights transfer and transaction markets has become a key issue in improving the allocation efficiency of rural factors. From the perspective of transaction cost theory, this study interprets such markets as government-led institutional platforms that convert institutional supply into market functions by reducing information search, bargaining and contracting, supervision and enforcement, dispute governance, and financing conversion costs. On this basis, an input–output evaluation system is constructed with land transfer disputes incorporated as an undesirable output. Using panel data for 29 Chinese provinces from 2021 to 2023, the study applies the SBM-DEA model and the Malmquist productivity index to evaluate static efficiency, compare recorded inputs and outputs, examine dynamic productivity change, and identify provincial development types. The results show that (1) the mean static efficiency score is 0.4996, indicating that overall efficiency remains below the frontier and exhibits a slight increase in 2022 followed by a decline in 2023. Spatially, the distribution presents a heterogeneous pattern, with frontier and non-frontier markets distributed across eastern, central, western, and northeastern China. (2) Input–output comparisons reveal differentiated provincial performance: Zhejiang recorded increased fiscal subsidies alongside declining financing output, while Hainan exhibited a substantial difference between online platform inputs and recorded transaction and financing outputs. (3) The mean total factor productivity index is 0.925, with the technical change index (1.256) exceeding the efficiency change index (0.737), and the TFP index increasing from 0.719 in 2021–2022 to 1.190 in 2022–2023. (4) Based on the two-dimensional relationship between technical change and efficiency change, provincial markets can be classified into Dual-Engine Driven, Technology-Led, Decline-Warning, and Management-Recovery types, comprising 9, 12, 2, and 6 provinces, respectively. The findings suggest that the transformation of rural property rights transfer and transaction markets should move from scale-oriented expansion toward improved transaction services, more effective resource allocation, strengthened financing linkages, and better dispute information management.