Abstract: By using the academic thought of spatial economics as reference, this paper introduced the concept“space”to the study of the choices of the farmland transfer contracts. Then it constructs an analytical framework of space, reputation and the contract choices of farmland transfer and conducts an econometric analysis with the samples of 505 farmer households, who have transferred their farmland, in 5 counties in Guizhou Province. The results show that the closer the spatial distance of farmland transfer is, the more likely the farmers would choose oral contracts; and the farther the spatial distance, the more likely they would choose written contracts. In addition, the better the reputation of the counterpart is, the more likely the farmers would choose oral contracts, and the worse the reputation is, the more likely they would choose written ones; the older the farmers are, the more likely they would choose oral contracts; the more schooling years of the farmers have, the more likely they would choose written contracts. From them we can get some enlightenment that we should dig up, carry forward and foster the reputation assets, so as to promote the farmland transfer market being operating at a lower cost.

Key words: transfer space; farmland transfer; reputation; contract selection