The Power of Securing Property Rights: Evidence from China's Land Titling Policy

We develop a theoretical model to study the effect of the land titling program on land transfer, labor allocation, and agricultural production costs in rural China. To conduct empirical analysis, we employ the difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences models and use nationally representative household survey data collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Results show that land titling significantly increases the probability of land transfer by approximately 6.36 percentage points. Land titling shifts rural laborers out of the agriculture sector and increases the migrant ratio in rural households. Finally, land titling decreases the per unit cost of agricultural products by about 8.11%.