DOI:
10.31063/2073-6517/2019.16-4.16
For citation:
Fedyunina, E. N., &. Oganesyan, L. O. (2019). Institutional Factors of Agricultural Land Market Functioning. Zhurnal ekonomicheskoj Teorii [Russian Journal of Economic Theory], 16(4), 810-823
Abstract:
The article substantiates the author’s approach to the study of the agricultural land market, which allows to build models of supply and demand, to hypothesize the dominance of institutional factors in the structure of non-price determinants of supply and demand, which determine the direction of structural changes in the market. The results of empirical research are based on previous studies (Hovhannisyan, Fedyunina 2014; 2015, 2018), and monitoring the functioning of local agricultural land markets in 2018–2019. These results confirm the hypothesis of the authors and allow to identify a number of problems caused by institutional conditions for the functioning of the market, features of the transaction of full and limited property rights to agricultural land, motivation for the formation of demand for land rental. The study of local markets revealed the causes of opportunistic behavior in lease relations: unfair competition, risks (crop failure), asymmetric information about price, low level of legal knowledge, informal relations, the effect of the confidence factor and the lack of criteria for the selection of auction participants. Based on the results of multivariate analysis of the expert assessment, the institutional factors constraining the development of the market are identified: institutional restrictions, the institution of shared ownership of land with limited ownership and disposal rights, high transaction costs of agricultural land turnover, risks of opportunism and monopolization of the market. The vector of orientation of the structural transformation of the market, on the one hand, is determined by exogenous factors-institutional barriers, restrictions, prohibitions, transaction costs, which indicates the impact of institutional determinants on the supply and demand of agricultural land, and on the other hand, endogenous institutional factors-the motives and interests of owners of agricultural land. The identified problems are caused by the incompleteness of the land reform, the action of the Institute of shared ownership and the specifics of the mechanism of functioning of the market of property rights to agricultural land. In this context, it is necessary to implement a policy of institutionalization of the market of ownership rights to agricultural land within the framework of the targeted Federal program for the completion of land reform, aimed at improving the institutional environment of the market.