Objective: The study is intended to reveal the threshold effect of household forestland transfer. It is important to identify the threshold characteristics and the non-linear effects of key factors in different threshold ranges for supporting decision-making for improving forestland transfer policy. Method: Based on the monitoring data of collective forest tenure reform of the State Forestry Administration in 2016 and survey data of farmers in Guangdong and Guizhou provinces in 2017, the panel data on the size of transferred household forestland was constructed for different forest blocks. From the perspective of power matching, the threshold variable is the size of household forestland management, and the core explanatory variable is the level of family income, the number of household labor force and whether they have forest certificate or not. Using threshold regression model, empirical tests of the threshold effect of the size of household forestland transfer and the non-linear influence of various factors were conducted. Result: Firstly, when the household income level and the number of household farming labors are taken as the core explanatory variables, the threshold estimates show that there are double thresholds for the size of household forestland management, with the values of 18 hm2 and 20 hm2, respectively. When the core explanatory variable is whether or not the forest ownership certificate exists, there exists a single threshold for the size of household forestland management, with a value of 33.4 hm2. Secondly, When the size of household forestland management is more than 18 hm2, the level of family income has a significant positive impact on the size of forestland transfer. When the size of forestland management is larger than 20 hm2, its influence coefficient is obviously larger. When the size of household forestland management is less than 18 hm2, the number of household farming labor has a significant negative impact on the size of forestland transfer. However, when the size of forestland management is more than 18 hm2 and less than 20 hm2, it has a significant positive impact. When the size of household forestland management is less than or greater than 33.4 hm2, whether the ownership certificate has a negative and positive impact on the size of transferred forestland, but not significant. Samples were grouped according to the threshold value of household forestland management and then regression analyses were conducted to test the robustness of the estimated results, the significance of the influence of each core explanatory variable is different from that of the threshold estimation, but the direction is the same. Conclusion: Household forestland transfer is not unidirectional or linear, and the role of key factors has a threshold effect. Only at a certain level of forestland management, the increase of household income significantly promotes the size of forestland transfer. It shows that reducing the dependence of farmers on forestland may not be able to promote the transter of forestland. Within the threshold range for different sizes of forestland management, the impact of household farming labor force on the size of household forestland transfer is different. Transfer of rural labor force may not be able to promote the transfer of forestland. The effect of certification of forestland ownership on the size of household forestland transfer is also bidirectional and not significant,implying that the stabilization of forestland property rights is less important than policy expectation in promoting forestland transfer. Improving the policy on forestland transfer needs to pay attention to the threshold effect of household behavior. Relaxation of restrictions may not promote the transfer of rural forestland and may even have the opposite effect. Institutional supply can take into account the different demands of forestland transfer under different conditions. Increasing the flexibility and priority of policy implementation improves the institutional performance and promotes large-scale management of forestland. © 2020, Editorial Department of Scientia Silvae Sinicae. All right reserved.
