With the evolution of the rural economy towards placing greater importance on investment, migration, and non-agricultural income sources, there is a discussion as to whether the mechanisms that were put in place in 1978 are still needed and/or the most appropriate. It is often argued that the restrictions put on land rights, in terms of their duration as well as the scope for redistribution, are no longer adequate to facilitate productivity-improving land transfers and to bring about an adequate level of investment, both of which would provide the framework for a dynamic evolution of China's rural economy. In response to fears fueled by reports of an investment-reducing impact of existing land rights arrangements, the Government has adopted a policy that would give longer and better documented land rights to the rural population. Whether or not to proceed more vigorously with the implementation of these measures is an issue of considerable interest and policy relevance. To provide a satisfactory answer, it will be necessary to look not only at the economic aspects of the new land rights arrangement but also at social issues and the impact of such a policy measure on asset accumulation and factors that determine its acceptability to the population. In this paper, we use information generated by a land policy experiment, conducted by the Chinese Government with the express purpose of providing insight into these issues, to gam a better understanding of these issues.

The policy experiment in question consisted of the adoption of directives which, by eliminating the scope for periodic redistribution and increasing the duration for which land use nghts were awarded, provided land cultivators in Guizhou province with more secure land rights than were available in neighboring provinces. This allows a "real-world" assessment of the impact of land policy changes that is likely to be superior to what can be obtained from hypothetical studies that have, up to now, largely formed the basis for policy recommendations in this area. The ability to assess the impact of the policy change in a number of dimensions allows us to address the complexity of the issue and is also more likely to respond to the need of policy makers who, in addition to the economic impact of such a measure, are concemed about the longer-term equity impacts and social acceptability of such a policy. The fact that Guizhou is also one of China's poorest provinces adds relevance as, in this environment, other safety nets will be more scarce, implying that access to land would perform a particularly important role in insuring rural households against vulnerability. Ability to show that more secure land rights have no negative impact on households' ability to cope with shocks and are acceptable from a social point of view in this environment would lead one to expect similar results in other more advanced provinces, allowing broader applicability of the results.

The paper is structured as follows. Section two provides a background on Chinese land tenure, the literature, and the characteristics of the land tenure expenment conducted in Guizhou. Section three describes the sample and, as a first approximation to measurement of the impact of different land 2