Resource information
The primary purpose of this paper is to make a contribution towards extending the coverage of this cropland tenure literature to China's extensive grasslands, which comprise some 40% of its territory.The article finds that:there are two unique characteristics of grassland tenure in this territory: group tenure arrangements and 'fuzzy' boundariesin conventional microeconomic analysis, both of these characteristics raise efficiency concernsthese concerns are only partly justified. By using a new institutional economics perspective and giving due consideration to the nature of resource endowments and the economic environment, 'hidden benefits' of group tenure and fuzzy boundaries are revealedbenefits include facilitating the realization of economies of size with respect to herding labour, equitable household access to resources, and insurance against economic riskChinese cropland tenure also facilitates the latter two, it does this through different tenure mechanisms and this reaffirms the role of natural resource endowments in shaping institutional arrangements
