Abstract: In the context of the imperfect systems of farmland property rights, farmland ownership affirmation and informal rules will determine the risk level of farmland property rights, and further affecting farmland transfer rents. Through establishing a theoretical model to display the impacts of farmland ownership affirmation, informal rules and their interactions on farmland transfer rents, this paper adopts the microscopic survey data of 762 apple growers from Shandong province and Shaanxi province to conduct an empirical examination. The results indicate that farmland ownership affirmation and third-party involvement could increase the rents of farmland transfer, but the closer reciprocal relationship of the farmland transacting parties could decrease farmland transfer rents, and farmland ownership affirmation could strengthen the inhibiting effect of the reciprocal relationship of transacting parties on farmland transfer rents. The punitive default clauses in farmland rental contracts could increase farmland transfer rents, but weaken the impact of informal rules on farmland transfer rents. The third-party involvement could have the function of default regulation in the formation process of farmland rental contracts and within the validity period of rental contracts.

Key words: farmland transfer rents, farmland ownership affirmation, informal rules, punitive default clauses