Impact mechanism of land resource allocation on integrated urban-rural development

[Objective] Market-based allocation of land factors is an important element in improving China’s socialist market economy system, and has important practical implications for promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas and building a dual-cycle development pattern. This study aimed to investigate the impact of land resource allocation on the integrated development of urban and rural areas at the theoretical and empirical levels. [Methods] Based on the panel data from 2006-2017 in the central cities of the Yangtze River Delta region, and using the bootstrap mediation effect model, an empirical analysis was conducted on the intrinsic logical relationship between government control, land marketization, and integrated urban-rural development. [Results] (1) Theoretically, a unified market-based urban-rural land allocation system can bring about an increase in social welfare compared with a divided state, while the quasi-public goods attribute of land and the limited rationality of the government dictate that the allocation of land resources under the orientation of integrated urban-rural development should be between a “responsive government” and an “effective market”. (2) The government’s control behavior, characterized by tax policy, has a significant positive impact on the level of integrated urban-rural development, but the impact of industrial policy is not significant, and both the marketization of urban land and the marketization of agricultural land significantly contributed to the improvement of the level of integrated urban-rural development during the study period. (3) The mediation effects of marketization of agricultural land and urban land were 19.29% and 12.26% respectively in the path of tax policy affecting the level of integrated urban-rural development; the mediation effect of land marketization between industrial policy and integrated urban-rural development was not significant. [Conclusion] Clearly defining the boundary between the government and the market, deepening the reform of the land property rights system, and improving the linkage between urban and rural institutional systems are the directions of future reform.