Asset Specificity on the Intention of Farmers to Continue Land Recuperation: Based on the Perspective of Farmer Differentiation

• Main Authors: Siyang Zhang, Xianxiong Xie, Minjuan Zhao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Land
• Subjects: subsequent land recuperation willingness; asset specificity; farmer differentiation; double-hurdle model
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/603

Land recuperation is an important institutional guarantee for green agricultural development and an important measure to promote rural revitalization. Asset specificity is a crucial factor that affects farmers’ subsequent willingness to participate in land recuperation. Based on the perspective of farmer differentiation, this study uses survey data of 605 farmers in four counties of Gansu Province and employs the entropy method and the double-hurdle model to measure asset specificity and how it affects the subsequent willingness of different types of farmers to participate in land recuperation. The results show that: (1) farmers’ willingness to participate in land recuperation increases with the degree of their part-time occupations; (2) geographical location specificity has a significant negative effect on farmers’ intention and degree of subsequent land recuperations, and the impacts on non-farmers and II part-time farmers are significantly smaller than that on pure farmers and part-time farmers; (3) physical asset specificity has the most negligible influence on farmers’ subsequent willingness to participate; (4) human capital specificity has a significant negative impact on the intention and degree of land recuperation by farmers, and the effect is more significant for pure farmers than non-farmers; (5) factors such as land recuperation compensation satisfaction, land recuperation policy trust, social connection, and off-farm employment willingness promote the subsequent land recuperation willingness and degree of land recuperation of farmers, while the cultivated land area reduces the subsequent degree of participation in land recuperation.