Abstract:Based on the sustainable livelihoods framework, livelihood capital quantity and structure were selected as mediating variables, and then difference-in-difference model and mediation-effect model were employed to analyze the impact mechanism of rural land consolidation projects (RLCP) in different modes on farmers' life satisfaction. The result indicated that: (1) Local government-dominant mode and new agricultural management entities-dominant mode RLCP had significant positive direct effect on farmers' life satisfaction, and also had significant positive indirect effect on farmers' life satisfaction by increasing livelihood capital quantity and improving livelihood capital structure. (2) Compared with local government-dominant mode RLCP, new agricultural management entities-dominant mode RLCP had significant positive effect on farmers' life satisfaction by significantly increasing livelihood capital quantity and improving livelihood capital structure. (3) The mediating effect of livelihood capital quantity was larger than that of livelihood capital structure in local government-dominant mode RLCP, while the mediating effect of livelihood capital structure was larger than that of livelihood capital quantity in new agricultural management entities-dominant mode RLCP. (4) Winsorization approach was adopted to carry out robustness tests, which confirmed the main estimation results were considerably robust.