ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the nature of ambiguity of property rights over collectively owned land, followed by an analysis of formal or informal institutional change given the ambiguity of collective land. Urban China and rural China are two institutionally distinct domains, and rights over collectively owned land are ambiguously delineated. In the economically dynamic regions which experience rapid industrialization and urbanization, land-related disputes for the distribution of land rents and even the land per se tend to occur more frequently. Urban governments in the Yangtze River Delta region strengthened their control over villages’ land conversion and land leasing for non-agricultural uses in the late 1990s, and built deliberately planned development zones to develop industries. In comparison with urban households, rural households have an affordable housing option because housing land in rural villages is given free of charge. In addition to the black markets in the urban land sector, there were at least two “black markets” in the rural land sector.
