Sources of Total-Factor Productivity and Efficiency Changes in China’s Agriculture
Tóm tắt
The core of agricultural development depends on agricultural production efficiency improvement, and total-factor productivity growth is its significant embodiment. Hence, it is essential to address the question of “how to improve China’s agricultural productivity and efficiency in order to achieve growth and sustainability of agriculture in the future”. This paper estimates indices of China’s agricultural technical efficiency (TE) scores, total-factor productivity (TFP), and its two components, technological change/progress (TC) and technical efficiency change (EC), using provincial-level panel data of 30 provinces from 2002 to 2017 by applying a stochastic frontier approach (SFA). The paper also identifies determinants of TE, TC, and TFP using selected indicators from four hierarchical levels of the economy, i.e., farm level, production environment level, provincial level, and the state level, by applying a system-GMM method. Results reveal that agricultural labor, machinery, agricultural plastic film, and pesticides are the significant drivers of agricultural productivity, with no significant role of land area under cultivation. Constant returns to scale exist in China’s agriculture. The agricultural technical efficiency level fluctuated between 80% and 91% with a stable trend and a slight decline in later years, while TFP improved consistently over time, mainly driven by technological progress. Among the determinants, government investment in agricultural development projects significantly drives TC and TE, while the experienced labor force significantly increases TE. The disaster rate significantly reduces TE but promotes TC and TFP. The literacy rate significantly improves TC and TFP. However, government expenditures in “agriculture, forestry, and water” significantly reduce TE, TC, and TFP. Policy recommendations include (1) increased levels of mechanization and agriculture film use while avoiding an increase in pesticide use, (2) a continued increase in government expenditure in agricultural development projects, R&D to improve technological progress, and diffusion of modern agricultural technologies, and (3) investment in education targeted at the farming population in order to continue the growth in the productivity and sustainability of China’s agriculture.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
Grabowski, 2019, Structural change in Asia, the real effective exchange rate, and agricultural productivity, J. Econ. Financ., 44, 198, 10.1007/s12197-019-09493-5
Wang, 2019, Are China’s regional agricultural productivities converging: How and why?, Food Policy, 86, 101727, 10.1016/j.foodpol.2019.05.010
Wu, 2020, Impacts of agricultural industrial agglomeration on China’s agricultural energy efficiency: A spatial econometrics analysis, J. Clean. Prod., 260, 121011, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121011
Ayerst, S., Brandt, L., and Restuccia, D. (2020). Market constraints, misallocation, and productivity in Vietnam agriculture. Food Policy, 101840.
Rahman, 2020, Productivity and efficiency impact of climate change and agroecology on Bangladesh agriculture, Land Use Policy, 94, 104507, 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104507
Lu, 2020, How land transfer marketization influence on green total factor productivity from the approach of industrial structure? Evidence from China, Land Use Policy, 95, 104610, 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104610
Farrell, 1957, The Measurement of Productive Efficiency, J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. A Gen., 120, 253, 10.2307/2343100
Rahman, S., and Barmon, B.K. (2019). Greening modern rice farming using vermicompost and its impact on productivity and efficiency: An empirical analysis from Bangladesh. Agriculture, 9.
Kawagoe, 1985, The intercountry agricultural production function and productivity differences among countries, J. Dev. Econ., 19, 113, 10.1016/0304-3878(85)90041-0
Chen, 2008, Efficiency and technology gap in China’s agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis, China Econ. Rev., 19, 287, 10.1016/j.chieco.2007.03.001
Yin, N., and Wang, Y. (2017). Impacts of rural labor resource change on the technical efficiency of crop production in china. Agriculture, 7.
Li, 2013, Productivity growth in China’s agriculture during 1985–2010, J. Integr. Agric., 12, 1896, 10.1016/S2095-3119(13)60598-5
Mao, 1997, Productivity growth, technological progress, and efficiency change in chinese agriculture after rural economic reforms: A DEA approach, China Econ. Rev., 8, 157, 10.1016/S1043-951X(97)90004-3
2016, Productivity and convergence in European agriculture, J. Agric. Econ., 68, 228
Rahman, 2013, Six Decades of total factor productivity change and sources of growth in Bangladesh agriculture (1948–2008), J. Agric. Econ., 64, 275, 10.1111/1477-9552.12009
Song, 2016, Changes in productivity, efficiency and technology of China’s crop production under rural restructuring, J. Rural. Stud., 47, 563, 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.07.023
Tian, 2012, The Enigmas of TFP in China: A meta-analysis, China Econ. Rev., 23, 396, 10.1016/j.chieco.2012.02.007
Shen, 2019, Agricultural productivity evolution in China: A generalized decomposition of the Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen productivity indicator, China Econ. Rev., 57, 57, 10.1016/j.chieco.2019.101315
Andersen, 2015, Public investment in U.S. agricultural R&D and the economic benefits, Food Policy, 51, 38, 10.1016/j.foodpol.2014.12.005
Yan, 2019, Farm size and production efficiency in Chinese agriculture: Output and profit, China Agric. Econ. Rev., 11, 20, 10.1108/CAER-05-2018-0082
Zeng, S., Zhu, F., Chen, F., Yu, M., Zhang, S., and Yang, Y. (2018). Assessing the impacts of land consolidation on agricultural technical efficiency of producers: A survey from Jiangsu Province, China. Sustainability, 10.
Grashuis, 2018, A review of the empirical literature on farmer cooperatives: Performance, ownership and governance, finance, and member attitude, Ann. Public Coop. Econ., 90, 77, 10.1111/apce.12205
Bahta, Y.T., Jordaan, H., and Sabastain, G. (2020). Agricultural management practices and factors affecting technical efficiency in Zimbabwe maize farming. Agriculture, 10.
Aigner, 1977, Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models, J. Econ., 6, 21, 10.1016/0304-4076(77)90052-5
Meeusen, 1977, Efficiency estimation from cobb-douglas production functions with composed error, Int. Econ. Rev., 18, 435, 10.2307/2525757
Danilin, 1985, Measuring enterprise efficiency in the Soviet Union: A stochastic frontier analysis, Economica, 52, 225, 10.2307/2554422
Greene, 2008, The econometric approach to efficiency analysis, Meas. Product. Effic. Product. Chang., 1, 92
Coelli, 2003, A stochastic frontier approach to total factor productivity measurement in Bangladesh crop agriculture, 1961–1992, J. Int. Dev., 15, 321, 10.1002/jid.975
Stevenson, 1980, Likelihood functions for generalized stochastic frontier estimation, J. Econ., 13, 57, 10.1016/0304-4076(80)90042-1
Greene, 1990, A Gamma-distributed stochastic frontier model, J. Econ., 46, 141, 10.1016/0304-4076(90)90052-U
Ali, 2019, Technical efficiency of hybrid maize growers: A stochastic frontier model approach, J. Integr. Agric., 18, 2408, 10.1016/S2095-3119(19)62743-7
Berk, 2020, Towards a common renewable future: The System-GMM approach to assess the convergence in renewable energy consumption of EU countries, Energy Econ., 87, 103922, 10.1016/j.eneco.2018.02.013
Liu, 2017, GMM estimation of spatial autoregressive models in a system of simultaneous equations with heteroskedasticity, Econ. Rev., 38, 359, 10.1080/07474938.2017.1308087
Gafter, 2017, The role of social ties and communication technologies in visiting friends tourism- A GMM simultaneous equations approach, Tour. Manag., 61, 343, 10.1016/j.tourman.2017.02.024
Blundell, 1998, Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models, J. Econ., 87, 115, 10.1016/S0304-4076(98)00009-8
Carstensen, 2004, Foreign direct investment in central and eastern European countries: A dynamic panel analysis, J. Comp. Econ., 32, 3, 10.1016/j.jce.2003.11.001
Wang, 2002, One-step and two-step estimation of the effects of exogenous variables on technical efficiency levels, J. Prod. Anal., 18, 129, 10.1023/A:1016565719882
Castellanos, 2010, Measurement of productive efficiency with frontier methods: A case study for wind farms, Energy Econ., 32, 1199, 10.1016/j.eneco.2010.03.004
Cao, 2017, China’s industrial total-factor energy productivity growth at sub-industry level: A two-step stochastic metafrontier malmquist index approach, Sustainability, 9, 1384, 10.3390/su9081384
Song, 2019, Eco-efficiency of grain production in China based on water footprints: A stochastic frontier approach, J. Clean. Prod., 236, 236, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117685
Moutinho, 2020, The effect of urban air pollutants in Germany: Eco-efficiency analysis through fractional regression models applied after DEA and SFA efficiency predictions, Sustain. Cities Soc., 59, 102204, 10.1016/j.scs.2020.102204
Heanue, 2016, The impact of formal agricultural education on farm level innovation and management practices, J. Technol. Transf., 43, 844
Rada, 2018, Evaluating research and education performance in Indian agricultural development, Agric. Econ., 49, 395, 10.1111/agec.12424
Khanal, 2018, Farm performance analysis: Technical efficiencies and technology gaps of Nepalese farmers in different agro-ecological regions, Land Use Policy, 76, 645, 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.02.045
Chiang, 2004, Technical efficiency analysis of milkfish (Chanos chanos) production in Taiwan—An application of the stochastic frontier production function, Aquaculture, 230, 99, 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2003.09.038
Badar, 2007, Factors affecting agricultural production of Punjab (Pakistan), Pak. J. Agric. Sci., 44, 506
Sauer, 2006, Stochastic efficiency measurement: The curse of theoretical consistency, J. Appl. Econ., 9, 139, 10.1080/15140326.2006.12040642
Rahman, 2009, Production efficiency of jasmine rice producers in northern and North-Eastern Thailand, J. Agric. Econ., 60, 419, 10.1111/j.1477-9552.2008.00198.x
Adom, 2020, Decomposition of technical efficiency in agricultural production in Africa into transient and persistent technical efficiency under heterogeneous technologies, World Dev., 129, 104907, 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104907
Liu, 2000, Determinants of technical efficiency in post-collective chinese agriculture: Evidence from farm-level data, J. Comp. Econ., 28, 545, 10.1006/jcec.2000.1666
Wang, 2004, Production efficiency of Chinese agriculture: Evidence from rural household survey data, Agric. Econ., 15, 17, 10.1111/j.1574-0862.1996.tb00417.x