"In many cases land leases are issued by the administrative village, while the land belonged to the natural village in the past. It is like the ownership rights to land have been silently stolen from the natural village and vested in a level higher. [...] Yet, to date there are not many...

This paper takes the special features of land seriously, and study the efficient design of its property rights against the backdrop of social security. In particular, we explain why (i) tenure insecurity and (ii) restrictions on the right to transfer, two features that are often frown upon by...