A Discussion on the Relationship between Economic Growth and Land Illegal Use
At present, it is of utmost importance for China's sustainable development to coordinate the conflict between economic growth and land illegal use. In order to have a better understanding of land illegal use in economic development and provide a basis for managing land, the causes and mechanisms of land illegal use should be thoroughly investigated. This paper aims to test the causality between economic growth and land illegal use. Here, per capita GDP and the area of land illegal use were adopted to represent economic growth and land illegal use, respectively. First of all, two hypotheses of this study were presented. Second, provincial panel data of per capita GDP and area of land illegal use from 1999 to 2007 were collected. Third, the co-integration relationship between the per capita GDP and the area of land illegal use was examined. It was found that there is a long-term, balanced and stable relationship between economic growth and land illegal use. Forth, the causality between economic growth and land illegal use was analyzed using the Granger causality test. Results have proven the hypotheses of this study. It was also found that in the processes of China's industrialization and urbanization, there is a simple linear relationship between economic growth and land illegal use, and a two-way causality between economic growth and land illegal use. At the first delaying period, a two-way causality exists between economic growth and land illegal use; at the second delaying period, there is no causality exists between economic growth and land illegal use. It was also showed that economic growth is the incentive of land illegal use at the primary and secondary stages of economic growth. At the advanced stage, there is no causal relationship between economic growth and land illegal use. This is because, on the one hand, economic growth is no longer reliant on increases in land inputs; on the other hand, large-scale land illegal use shows a adverse effect on the quality of China's economic development. Some policy implications are given as follows. At present and in the future, phenomena of land illegal use exist and will continue to exist because of the great driving forces of economic growth. It is unrealistic and unnecessary to sacrifice economic growth to protect land. But disorder and excessive land illegal use would result in shortages of land resources, thus affecting food production, national security, and ultimately affect sustainable development. The effects of land illegal use on economic growth should be made full use of, and economic means, administrative means, and technical means can be taken to jointly control land illegal use within a reasonable range, making land illegal use better serve economic development.