Exploring the impacts of land titling on eco-environment: A case of livestock farming system in Inner Mongolia, China.

Livestock farming system (LFS) is an important pillar of the agri-food system. With global environmental problems severer, exploring how to improve the eco-environment of LFS through institutional change is receiving increasingly concern. Based on macro and micro data from Inner Mongolia, this study examines the impacts of land titling on the eco-environment of LFS, explores the potential mechanisms, and analyzes the heterogeneity in terms of farm size by applying GIS spatial analysis and time-varying difference-in-difference (TV-DID) model. Main results showed that overall land titling significantly improved the eco-environment represented by GVC. (1) The GIS spatial analysis indicated that land titling considerably increased GVC. The TV-DID model results further verified that land titling increased the GVC by 0.306 grade, and increased vegetation height by 1.27 cm on average; (2) The effects varied across farm sizes, with the GVC increased by 0.745 grade on farms larger than 373 ha and 0.230 grade otherwise; (3) The effects were mainly induced by the enhancement of farmers' attitudes, management capacities and land use behaviors after land titling. These three effects indicate the net effect, scale effect and security effect of land titling on the eco-environment of LFS, respectively. The study highlights that appropriate institutions are conducive to the sustainable management of livestock farming system, and beneficial for the natural resource-based poor worldwide.