农业租佃关系中的交易成本与土地产权分散程度的决定

Transaction Costs in Agriculture Tenancy Relationship and the Determination of Fragment Level of Land Property Rights

本文运用租佃关系演变历史围绕交易成本变化分析市场、技术和制度对土地产权分散水平的影响。租佃关系中的劳动分工导致土地产权的分散化,并由此产生交易成本,但是,由此带来的专业化与分工的收益可以弥补交易成本损失。因此,土地产权的分散程度取决于两者之间的权衡。为了应对租佃关系中的交易成本,一方面要提高租佃关系所能承受的交易成本的能力,即通过扩大农产品市场规模和技术水平来增加分工与专业化的收益,另一方面则要通过合约调整(即租佃制度安排)来降低交易成本。然而,从租佃关系演变史来看,土地产权的分散程度与经济发展水平呈现出正向关系,从而交易成本亦处于不断增加之中,因此,农业发展中应对租佃关系中的交易成本的关键在于市场拓展和技术进步。

This paper analyzes the fragment level of land property rights in agriculture tenancy relationship according to three factors:market,technology and institution.The transaction costs in tenancy relationships are brought by fragment of land property rights due to labor division in tenancy relationship,but these costs can be made up by the gains from labor division and specialization.Thus,the tradeoff between the two forces determines the level of fragment.In order to cope with transaction costs,on the one hand,the ability to suffer higher transaction costs by expanding market size or improving technology level should be strengthened, and on the other hand,contractual arrangements should be used to reduce these costs directly.However,because transaction costs are always positive in the real world and keep increasing during the evolution of tenancy history,the agricultural economy cannot fulfill progress by reducing transaction costs through contractual (i.e.institutional) adjustment but can by technology promotion and market expansion.All above is proved by agricultural tenancy history.