Cultivated land market in rural China: A case study in Hebei province, China

China's economy is experiencing rapid urbanization involving a large number of migrants from rural areas to urban areas who leave their cultivated land idle. A well-functioning cultivated land market is needed to increase the efficiency of land as a production factor. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cultivated land market in rural China based on a case study in Hebei, a province in northern China, and try to examine the institutional constraints of cultivated land market. It is concluded that, with the off-farm employment opportunities being controlled consistently, the tenure security status and general unavailability of local social security are two institutional constraints. The household's endowment also is an explanatory variable of farmers' behavior pattern in the land market.