[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/tecipa-762.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Land Security and Mobility Frictions

Author

Listed:
  • Tasso Adamopoulos
  • Loren Brandt
  • Chaoran Chen
  • Diego Restuccia
  • Xiaoyun Wei
Abstract
Frictions that impede the mobility of workers across occupations and space are a prominent feature of developing countries. We disentangle the role of insecure property rights from other labor mobility frictions for the reallocation of labor from agriculture to non-agriculture and from rural to urban areas. We combine rich household and individual-level panel data from China and an equilibrium quantitative framework featuring sorting of workers across locations and occupations. We explicitly model the farming household and the endogenous decisions of who operates the family farm and who potentially migrates, capturing an additional channel of selection within the household. We find that land insecurity has substantial negative effects on agricultural productivity and structural change, raising the share of rural households operating farms by over 40 percentage points and depressing agricultural productivity by more than 20 percent. Comparatively, these quantitative effects are as large as those from all residual labor-mobility frictions. We measure a sharp reduction in overall labor mobility barriers over 2004-2018 in the Chinese economy, all accounted for by improved land security, consistent with reforms covering rural land in China during the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Tasso Adamopoulos & Loren Brandt & Chaoran Chen & Diego Restuccia & Xiaoyun Wei, 2023. "Land Security and Mobility Frictions," Working Papers tecipa-762, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-762
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-762.pdf
    File Function: Main Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2014. "The Size Distribution of Farms and International Productivity Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1667-1697, June.
    2. Pedro Bento & Diego Restuccia, 2017. "Misallocation, Establishment Size, and Productivity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 267-303, July.
    3. Wen Yao & Xiaodong Zhu, 2021. "Structural Change And Aggregate Employment Fluctuations In China," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 65-100, February.
    4. Gharad Bryan & Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2014. "Underinvestment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(5), pages 1671-1748, September.
    5. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt, 2002. "Property rights, labour markets, and efficiency in a transition economy: the case of rural China," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(4), pages 689-716, November.
    6. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Technology adoption, capital deepening, and international productivity differences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Chaoran Chen & Diego Restuccia & Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis, 2022. "The Effects of Land Markets on Resource Allocation and Agricultural Productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 41-54, July.
    8. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    9. Loren Brandt & Trevor Tombe & Xiadong Zhu, 2013. "Factor Market Distortions Across Time, Space, and Sectors in China," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 39-58, January.
    10. Loren Brandt & Gueorgui Kambourov & Kjetil Storesletten, 2018. "Barriers to Entry and Regional Economic Growth in China," Working Papers tecipa-622, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    11. Alain de Janvry & Kyle Emerick & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2015. "Delinking Land Rights from Land Use: Certification and Migration in Mexico," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3125-3149, October.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    13. Zheng Song & Kjetil Storesletten & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2011. "Growing Like China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 196-233, February.
    14. Piyabha Kongsamut & Sergio Rebelo & Danyang Xie, 2001. "Beyond Balanced Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 869-882.
    15. John Giles & Ren Mu, 2018. "Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision: Evidence from China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(2), pages 521-544.
    16. Chaoran Chen, 2017. "Untitled Land, Occupational Choice, and Agricultural Productivity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 91-121, October.
    17. Restuccia, Diego & Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2008. "Agriculture and aggregate productivity: A quantitative cross-country analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 234-250, March.
    18. Douglas Gollin & David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2014. "Agricultural Productivity Differences across Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 165-170, May.
    19. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2018. "Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 1-18.
    20. Hao, Tongtong & Sun, Ruiqi & Tombe, Trevor & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2020. "The effect of migration policy on growth, structural change, and regional inequality in China," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 112-134.
    21. Bryan, Gharad & Morten, Melanie, 2019. "The aggregate productivity effects of internal migration: evidence from Indonesia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88177, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    22. Lorenzo Caliendo & Maximiliano Dvorkin & Fernando Parro, 2019. "Trade and Labor Market Dynamics: General Equilibrium Analysis of the China Trade Shock," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 741-835, May.
    23. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Land Reform and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, July.
    24. Joan Hamory & Marieke Kleemans & Nicholas Y Li & Edward Miguel, 2021. "Reevaluating Agricultural Productivity Gaps with Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1522-1555.
    25. Douglas Gollin & Stephen Parente & Richard Rogerson, 2002. "The Role of Agriculture in Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 160-164, May.
    26. Schoellman, Todd, 2020. "Comment on “migration costs and observational returns to migration in the developing world”," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 155-157.
    27. Sam Asher & Paul Novosad, 2020. "Rural Roads and Local Economic Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(3), pages 797-823, March.
    28. Tommaso Porzio & Federico Rossi & Gabriella Santangelo, 2022. "The Human Side of Structural Transformation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(8), pages 2774-2814, August.
    29. Tasso Adamopoulos & Loren Brandt & Jessica Leight & Diego Restuccia, 2022. "Misallocation, Selection, and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis With Panel Data From China," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1261-1282, May.
    30. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2016. "Networks and Misallocation: Insurance, Migration, and the Rural-Urban Wage Gap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 46-98, January.
    31. Gottlieb, Charles & Grobovšek, Jan, 2019. "Communal land and agricultural productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 135-152.
    32. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    33. Timo Boppart, 2014. "Structural Change and the Kaldor Facts in a Growth Model With Relative Price Effects and Non‐Gorman Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2167-2196, November.
    34. Trevor Tombe & Xiaodong Zhu, 2019. "Trade, Migration, and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis of China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1843-1872, May.
    35. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Capital-skill complementarity, sectoral labor productivity, and structural transformation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    36. Lagakos, David & Marshall, Samuel & Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq & Vernot, Corey & Waugh, Michael E., 2020. "Migration costs and observational returns to migration in the developing world," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 138-154.
    37. Benjamin, Dwayne & Brandt, Loren & Giles, John, 2005. "The Evolution of Income Inequality in Rural China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(4), pages 769-824, July.
    38. Gregory C. Chow, 1993. "Capital Formation and Economic Growth in China," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 809-842.
    39. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    40. Andrés Erosa & Luisa Fuster & Gueorgui Kambourov & Richard Rogerson, 2022. "Hours, Occupations, and Gender Differences in Labor Market Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 543-590, July.
    41. Douglas Gollin & David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2014. "The Agricultural Productivity Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 939-993.
    42. Mu-Jeung Yang, 2021. "Micro-level Misallocation and Selection," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 341-368, October.
    43. Diego Restuccia, 2019. "Misallocation and aggregate productivity across time and space," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-32, February.
    44. Piyabha Kongsamut & Sergio Rebelo & Danyang Xie, 2001. "Beyond Balanced Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(4), pages 869-882.
    45. David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2013. "Selection, Agriculture, and Cross-Country Productivity Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 948-980, April.
    46. Amalavoyal Chari & Elaine M Liu & Shing-Yi Wang & Yongxiang Wang, 2021. "Property Rights, Land Misallocation, and Agricultural Efficiency in China [Misallocation, Selection and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Panel Data from China]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(4), pages 1831-1862.
    47. Edward L. Glaeser & Ming Lu, 2018. "Human-Capital Externalities in China," NBER Working Papers 24925, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    48. repec:oup:qjecon:v:129:y:2014:i:2:p:939-993. is not listed on IDEAS
    49. Roberto Alvarez & Miguel A. Gonzalez & Jaime Ruiz-Tagle, 2020. "Differences in Immigrants Wage Gap: Evidence from Chile," Working Papers wp506, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    50. Erica Field, 2007. "Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1561-1602.
    51. Cao, Kang Hua & Birchenall, Javier A., 2013. "Agricultural productivity, structural change, and economic growth in post-reform China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 165-180.
    52. Jorge A. Alvarez, 2020. "The Agricultural Wage Gap: Evidence from Brazilian Micro-data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 153-173, January.
    53. Virgiliu Midrigan & Daniel Yi Xu, 2014. "Finance and Misallocation: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 422-458, February.
    54. Brueckner, Jan K. & Lall, Somik V., 2015. "Cities in Developing Countries," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1399-1455, Elsevier.
    55. Chao Zhou & Yunjuan Liang & Anthony Fuller, 2021. "Tracing Agricultural Land Transfer in China: Some Legal and Policy Issues," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, January.
    56. Gharad Bryan & Melanie Morten, 2019. "The Aggregate Productivity Effects of Internal Migration: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2229-2268.
    57. Cynthia Kinnan & Shing-Yi Wang & Yongxiang Wang, 2018. "Access to Migration for Rural Households," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 79-119, October.
    58. Mr. Sergio Rebelo & Ms. Piyabha Kongsamut & Danyang Xie, 2001. "Beyond Balanced Growth," IMF Working Papers 2001/085, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cao, Huoqing & Chen, Shiyi & Xi, Xican, 2023. "Aging, migration, and structural transformation in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Benjian Wu & Yiyuan Rong & Xinyu Liang & Haibo Zhu & Xue Shi, 2024. "Can Land Transfer Alleviate Multidimensional Relative Poverty in Rural Areas?," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-24, October.
    3. Palsson, Craig, 2023. "The forces of path dependence: Haiti's refugee camps, 1937–2009," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Huoqing Cao & Chaoran Chen & Xican Xi & Sharon Xuejing Zuo, 2024. "Family migration and structural transformation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 753-776, August.
    5. Zhang, Li & Xie, Lunyu & Zheng, Xinye, 2023. "Across a few prohibitive miles: The impact of the Anti-Poverty Relocation Program in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2024. "Symposium on Misallocation and Structural Transformation: Introduction," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 667-673, August.
    7. Liu, Shouying & Ma, Sen & Yin, Lijuan & Zhu, Jiong, 2023. "Land titling, human capital misallocation, and agricultural productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    8. Cao, Huoqing & Chen, Chaoran & Xi, Xican, 2024. "Home Production and Gender Gap in Structural Change," MPRA Paper 122334, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qingen Gai & Naijia Guo & Bingjing Li & Qinghua Shi & Xiaodong Zhu, 2021. "Migration Costs, Sorting, and the Agricultural Productivity Gap," Working Papers tecipa-693, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    2. Chaoran Chen & Diego Restuccia & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2023. "Land Misallocation and Productivity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 441-465, April.
    3. Tasso Adamopoulos & Loren Brandt & Jessica Leight & Diego Restuccia, 2022. "Misallocation, Selection, and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis With Panel Data From China," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1261-1282, May.
    4. Chaoran Chen & Diego Restuccia & Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis, 2022. "The Effects of Land Markets on Resource Allocation and Agricultural Productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 41-54, July.
    5. David Lagakos & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak & Michael E. Waugh, 2023. "The Welfare Effects of Encouraging Rural–Urban Migration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(3), pages 803-837, May.
    6. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Technology adoption, capital deepening, and international productivity differences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2024. "Symposium on Misallocation and Structural Transformation: Introduction," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 667-673, August.
    8. Marijn A. Bolhuis & Swapnika R. Rachapalli & Diego Restuccia, 2021. "Misallocation in Indian Agriculture," NBER Working Papers 29363, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Zhao, Xiaoxue, 2020. "Land and labor allocation under communal tenure: Theory and evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    10. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2017. "The Causes and Costs of Misallocation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 151-174, Summer.
    11. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Land Reform and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, July.
    12. Selod, Harris & Shilpi, Forhad, 2021. "Rural-urban migration in developing countries: Lessons from the literature," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    13. Blanco, Cesar & Raurich, Xavier, 2022. "Agricultural composition and labor productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Huoqing Cao & Chaoran Chen & Xican Xi & Sharon Xuejing Zuo, 2024. "Family migration and structural transformation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 753-776, August.
    15. Gottlieb, Charles & Grobovšek, Jan, 2019. "Communal land and agricultural productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 135-152.
    16. Liu, Shouying & Ma, Sen & Yin, Lijuan & Zhu, Jiong, 2023. "Land titling, human capital misallocation, and agricultural productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    17. Le, Kien, 2020. "Land use restrictions, misallocation in agriculture, and aggregate productivity in Vietnam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    18. Gao, Xuwen & Shi, Xinjie & Fang, Shile, 2021. "Property rights and misallocation: Evidence from land certification in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    19. Yuan Tian & Junjie Xia & Rudai Yang, 2020. "Trade-induced urbanization and the making of modern agriculture," Discussion Papers 2020-16, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    20. Douglas Gollin & Christopher Udry, 2021. "Heterogeneity, Measurement Error, and Misallocation: Evidence from African Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(1), pages 1-80.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    land; labor mobility; agriculture; misallocation; household; productivity; China.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-762. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.