Exploring the effects of rural site conditions and household livelihood capitals on agricultural land transfers in China

• DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105523
• Publication Date: 2021-05-18T10:06:17Z
• Authors: Weiwen Wang; Jian Gong; Ying Wang; Yang Shen
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; 11. Sustainability; 0211 other engineering and technologies; 02 engineering and technology; 15. Life on land

Abstract Despite the increasing interest in influential factors of agricultural land transfer, there has been little analysis on the role of site conditions from the spatial characteristics of communities to which agricultural land belongs, let alone the combination with livelihood capitals. This paper suggests that rural site conditions (public resources) should be differentiated from household livelihood capitals (private capitals) as they operate under different dynamics of decision-making and management. Therefore, this paper develops a structural equation model to explore the causal pathway and quantify the magnitude of effects of rural site conditions (based on Site Assessment system) and household livelihood capitals (based on Sustainable Livelihood Framework) on agricultural land transfer. Results demonstrate that household livelihood capitals have significant impacts on agricultural land transfer (β = 0.537, P