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Study On Mechnism Of The Structural Adjustment Of Agricultural Production In China

Posted on:2006-01-03Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X KangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360152492500Subject:Agricultural Economics and Management
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The objective of this paper is to test empirically whether the adjustments of China's agricultural structure and regional distribution are in line with the principle of comparative advantage. The prospect of future adjustments under a more open and more competive world market is then analyzed based on the results.The paper provides a throughout description on adjustement of China's agricultural production structure and regional distribution during 1992-2002 using official statistics. The causes and mechanism for the strucutural adjustment are then analyzed both theoritically and empricallly. A theoretical model is proposed to explain the process. On the basis of that, the study proceeds with five tasks.First, we measureed the technical efficiency in production of major crops, including grains (early-mid- and late-season indica rice, japonica rice, wheat, corn, soybean, millet and grain sorghum) and crash crops (cotton, peanut, rapeseed, cured tobacco, sugarcane and sugarbeet). Frontier production functions in trans-log form are estimated for the crops using the data from China's agricultural production cost survey in the period of 1992-2002, which provide information of input-output elasticities and technical efficiency. The results reveal that land is the most important factor in crop production in China. There exist significant discrepancies in technical efficiency among provinces. It is concluded that, while protecting arable land is needed in order to secure agricultural supply in near future, improvement of human resource through education and thus technical efficiency represents a fundamental way to raise agricultural productivity in long term.Second, we assessed regional comparative advantage by crops. Social cost-benefit rate (SCB) were used as an indicator for the comparative advantage, which were calculated based on input-output coefficients derived from the production cost servey, border prices from customs statistics and estimated shadow prices for non-trade inputs. The results show that there are large regional differences in comparative advantage for different crops. In general, the regional distribution is consistent with regional comparative advantages.Third, we examined empirically the relationship between adjustment of agricultural production structure and the comparative advantage. Fixed-effect models are estimated to verify the dynamism for structural adjustment, where the calculated SCBs and lagged crop planting shares are used as explanatory variables. It is found that the adjustments of production structural of individual crops are affected by their respective comparative advantage, however, the process are quite slow for some crops due to structural rigidity.Fourth, the study also assessed the degree of regional specialization. The results suggest that there is an apparent tendency for growing regional specialization in line with the regional comparative advantage.At last, the paper evaluated the impacts of trade liberalization on comparative advantage ofdifferent crops using method of sensitivity analusis. The implications to future crop production are discussed based on the results.The major concisions are as follows. Firstly, given that the structural adjustments of crop production are largely in line with regional comparative advantage, it seems that the farmers are able to react rationally to price signals. Secondly, the structural adjustment leads to a growing regional specialization and, as a result, the marketing system will become a key for a healthy development of crop production in future. Thirdly, the government should take measures to improve agricultural marketing system, so as to reduce policy-induced price distortion and transaction costs.
Keywords/Search Tags:Translog Production Function, Technical Efficiency, Comparative Advantage, Structural Adjustment of Agricultural Production, Regional Distribution
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