Re-Estimation of Inequality of Rural Land Distribution in Modern China : Based on the Buck Family Farm Survey Data in the 1930s

Land inequality is a global and historic issue, and it also existed in modern China. It is of great economic significance to estimate the land inequality in modern China, and there were abundant related studies, but there are still some improvements in the matching of data and methods. Based on a Buck survey data of 10,572 family farms in 104 counties in 20 provinces in the 1930s, this article used the Gini coefficient method to systematically estimate the inequality of rural private land distribution in modern China. The results show that the top 10% of the rural population or households in modern China owned 36.84% or 44.52% of the land, and the corresponding Gini coefficients were 0.549 and 0.618, respectively. At the aggregate level, the distribution of land ownership was highly unequal. Inequality was generally higher across regions, provinces and counties in the South, while lower in the North. Inequality between farmland and other land was high, and the distribution of farmhouse was relatively average. Overall inequality was mainly contributed by the inequality of farmland. Compared with ownership, the degree of inequality in the distribution of land use rights was significantly lower, which was related to the land rental market. This re-estimated study suggest that traditional views overestimated the concentration of land ownership in modern China, but not as low as recent studies pointed out, and provide more differences of region, composition, and rights in land distribution