Policy pilots have a deep institutional foundation in China and carry significant policy exploration missions. The three pilot rural land system reforms implemented from 2015 to 2019 ("Three Plots of Land" reform) represent a major central exploration to address current problems in the land system.

In January 2015, to specifically implement the requirements of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the "Opinions on Rural Land Expropriation, Entry of Collective Operational Construction Land into the Market, and Pilot Work for Homestead System Reform," further clarifying the direction and tasks of rural land system reform. In February, the 13th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress passed the "Decision on Authorizing the State Council to Temporarily Adjust and Implement Relevant Legal Provisions in 33 Pilot County (City, District) Administrative Regions Including Daxing District, Beijing." In June of the same year, the former Ministry of Land and Resources, together with relevant departments, reviewed and approved implementation plans for pilot areas one by one, including 15 pilot projects each for homestead system reform and collective operational construction land entering the market, and 3 pilot projects for land acquisition system reform.

From 2015 to the end of 2019, the initial "three pilots" were operated separately and closed in different regions, and later gradually adopted a "coordinated advancement" approach. Each pilot region continuously reformed and innovated, accumulating rich local practices and experience, and producing many replicable, promotable, and beneficial institutional innovations that strongly supported the revision of the Land Administration Law. Although the pilot work has ended and the revision of the Land Administration Law was completed and officially implemented in 2020, overall, while the three rural land system reform pilots have achieved remarkable results, some reforms and practices still have room for further deepening and exploration.

Therefore, as the three pilot tasks are completed, it is extremely important to systematically, comprehensively, and scientifically evaluate the implementation, effectiveness, and difficulties of the rural land system reform pilot based on scientific evaluation methods and procedures. This is of great significance for fully completing the central government's reform deployment, further enhancing the systematic, holistic, and coordinated nature of reform, accelerating the advancement of China's rural land system and related economic and social reforms, and ultimately achieving urban-rural integrated development.

Based on the characteristics of pilot policies and from the perspective of central-local interaction, this book forms a pilot policy evaluation framework based on central-local relations, as well as a two-stage method combining initial evaluation (expected results from the central government) and secondary evaluation (actual local results), further enhancing the application capabilities of the S-CAD evaluation method.

This book is divided into three parts: the first, middle, and second parts. The first part provides an overall analysis of the pilot and the construction of a policy evaluation framework, including the background and implementation of the three rural land system reform pilots, as well as an introduction to the S-CAD evaluation methods for pilot policies. The middle part covers local practice and evaluation applications, comprehensively considering factors such as geographic location, economic foundation, population and urbanization, and reform foundation in 33 pilot areas. From each of the "three plots" individual reform task pilots, two pilot regions are selected for S-CAD pilot policy evaluation and analysis, followed by an overall evaluation and analysis. The second part, as a special research and exploration, focuses on three hot topics in the rural land system reform pilot work: distribution of income from expropriation and market entry, coordinated promotion of the three reform pilots, and the exit and transfer of rural homestead land use rights. Under the S-CAD paradigm, it conducts in-depth research from another dimension. Through research: On one hand, the practice and practices of this pilot reform were comprehensively and systematically summarized; on the other hand, the developed S-CAD two-stage policy evaluation method was applied to evaluate and comparative analysis of the "three plots of land" reform in representative pilot areas. From the points to the surface, the implementation and effectiveness of pilot policies were judged locally, providing decision-making basis and policy references for scientific evaluation of pilot policies and further deepening reform of China's land system.

This book was personally led and mentored by Professor Liang Henian, former Dean of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen's University of Canada, the creator of the S-CAD method, and was jointly completed by the Policy Effect Research Institute of Central University of Finance and Economics and the Land System Reform Research Team at the China Institute of Natural Resources Economics. The Peking University-Lincoln Center provides funding for project research and publication.

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