Efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis

Zhuo CHEN, Shunfeng SONG

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

110 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper utilizes a unique county-level dataset to examine technical efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture. We classify the counties into four regions with distinctive levels of economic development, and hence production technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is used. We find that although the eastern counties have the highest efficiency scores with respect to the regional frontier but the northeastern region leads in terms of agricultural production technology nationwide. Meanwhile, the mean efficiency of the northeastern counties is particularly low, suggesting technology and knowledge diffusion within region might help to improve production efficiency and thus agricultural output.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)287-296
Number of pages10
JournalChina Economic Review
Volume19
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • China's grain production
  • County-level
  • Meta-frontier
  • Stochastic production frontier
  • Technical efficiency

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Efficiency and technology gap in China's agriculture: A regional meta-frontier analysis'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this