The Research On Agricultural Investment Efficiency In Western China

The problem of unbalanced development for China's macroeconomic has become moreand more serious after30years of economic reform; the growing gap between the region,industry, urban and rural areas as well as ecological protection has affected the furtherdevelopment of the economic and the social stability. In order to promote the harmoniousdevelopment of our economy and society, China implemented the strategy of westerndevelopment which increased the investment in the western region since2000. However, thekey to determine the success of the strategic objective lies on whether the agriculturalinvestment can promote the effective growth of the agricultural economy in western China; sothe research for the agricultural investment efficiency in western China is particularlyimportant. The investment efficiency theory which accompanied by the development of theeconomic growth theory analyzed the impact of agricultural investment on economic growthfrom various aspects, and therefore it is necessary to strengthen the research on theagricultural investment efficiency in western China for the correct evaluation on thecontribution that agricultural investment to the effective growth of the agricultural economyin western China. For a long time, the regional industrial investment evaluation method inChina has put emphasis on the establishment and evaluation of indexes comprehensive systemfor the total index and relative indicators, while ignoring the correlation and dynamicinspection for the input elements of the investment with the goals. However, the efficiencystudy which based on the production function put more emphasis on the technical efficiency,elements production efficiency, thus deviating from the overall objective of the investmentefficiency; the data envelopment analysis put more emphasis on the evaluation of efficiencyand lack of efficiency measurement. Therefore, an objective analysis and evaluation of theefficiency of Western investment in agriculture has certain theoretical and practicalsignificance.The study on the agricultural investment efficiency in western China uses the evaluationtheories and methods that the economic growth theory to the regional industry investmentefficiency on the basis of the panel data from1995to2010in29provinces in China.According to the commonly used efficiency and regional economic evaluation system, thestudy uses the arable land, agricultural labor, agriculture and financial expenditure, agricultural fixed assets, total financial investment as agricultural investment, while using theregional gross national product, gross agricultural production, the regional total fiscal revenueof agricultural revenue, the total income of farmers, the reduction of arable land area,agricultural disaster area as investment objectives to evaluate the agricultural investmentefficiency in western China. The investment and investment objectives are used to takesingle-factor production function fitting and the coefficient of the fitting function areevaluated followed by further fitting of multi-factor production function; the coefficients areused to analyze the input-output rate, scale efficiency, alternative efficiency. The calculatedmulti-factor production function coefficients are made comparison with the eastern andcentral regions; the problems and gaps of the agricultural investment efficiency in westernChina are analyzed. Finally, the efficiency advantages of western agricultural investment areanalyzed and the corresponding suggestions for promoting the agricultural investmentefficiency in western region are put forward.The main findings of the paper are as follows:(1) The efficiency of the production function as the core evaluation system is moresuitable than the average performance evaluation system on the evaluation of theeffectiveness of investment in agriculture;The single-factor production function fitting of agricultural investment and investmentobjectives tested the correlation of agricultural investment and investment objectives.Meanwhile, the time-series data reflects the dynamic relative relationship of the investmentand investment objectives. The investment efficiency indicators that used the productionfunction coefficients A and α, β can be more fully to reflect the institutional efficiency,technical efficiency, investment rate of substitution and scale efficiency, ROI, and overallefficiency of western agricultural investment than the investment rate of return.(2) The goal of western agricultural investment is the linkage income between a varietyof investment and investor.The correlation between investment and investment objectives are analyzed according tothe calculated coefficients A; the tested correlation coefficient of the function for theinvestment and investment objectives share the equal sort, financial income﹥agriculturalfinance income> Regional GNP> Agriculture GDP> farmers' income, showing thatinvestment objectives have homoplasy; Therefore, the linkage benefit analysis of theinvestment subjects shows that government finance, financial institutions and operatinghousehold income have linkage effect.(3) The contribution that western agricultural investment to the regional economy hasbeen determinedMulti-factor production function analysis shows that the scale efficiency of agricultural investment to agricultural GDP is greater than gross domestic product; and the scaleefficiency to the total fiscal revenue is greater than the income of agricultural finance. There isno fitting function for ecological objectives shows that there is no ecological contribution.From a national perspective, the scale efficiency of agricultural investment to gross nationalincome is greater than the total income of farmers.(4) Western investment in agriculture decreasing returns to scale.The efficiency of the scale for western agricultural investment: the total value of the GDP,gross agricultural production, the total fiscal revenue, agriculture, fiscal revenue is negative;in addition to the investment income of the farmers a function of α+β total is greater thanzero; indicating that the investment decreasing returns to scale; But less than zero ismanifested as a negative efficiency, indicating that should reduce the scale of investment.(5)The alternative efficiency of the western agricultural investment is lowAlternative efficiency analysis of the western region mainly show that the singleelements' alternative efficiency are too small and not more than1, indicating that anyalternative will diminish and decrease the efficiency. In addition, the significant negativeeffects are mainly the negative efficiency of labor input, indicating that among all thealternatives, decision affecting is not adding other elements input but reducing the laborinputs. If the individual element of the exponent α is greater than1or α β total is greater than1, the alternative returns to scale increasing will appear. The alternative efficiency ofwestern agricultural investment is less than1, indicating that the alternative efficiency ofwestern agricultural investment is low.(6)The advantage of western agricultural investment efficiency is not obvious.Comparing from longitudinal, since2000, western agricultural investment efficiencyadvantage began to decrease, the gross agricultural production and farmers' total incomeefficiency decreased and the gap keeps increasing. Comparing from horizontal perspective,agricultural financial expenditure on investment in agricultural output has output advantage,but has no input advantage. The output efficiency of agricultural fixed assets investment islower than the central region; for the investment of farmers' income, there is significantdifference of into efficiency and output efficiency from the eastern region. The inputsadvantage of agricultural fixed assets and agricultural employments have obvious advantages,but the output gap is too large and the overall efficiency advantage is low.