Off-farm Employment, Land Transfer And Changes In Agricultural Production

In transition period, a growing number of rural laborers enter cities for off-farm work, and thus family shall reallocate labor resources. This change has a profound influence to cities; it also has a profound impact on fanners' production and living. At the same time, peasant families may re-allocate land resources due to the change of labor resource allocation accordingly.Off-farm rural households are more likely to transfer land resources through the circulation market, which may also affect agricultural production.Thus, in face of rapid changing situation, we try to solve the interlinks of employment, transfer of agricultural land and agricultural production changes.Based on the above judgment, we use Peking CFPS national baseline survey data, and from perspective of new economics of migration theory (NELM), we try to do a series of empirical analysis of non-agricultural employment and transfer of agricultural land on agricultural production inputs and output efficiency from farmer household level.However, agricultural production is narrowly defined in this paper. We are concerned with changes in agricultural production, which mainly refer to changes in productive factors inputs and labor supply, as well as changes in agricultural output efficiency. The main contents and conclusions are as follows.Research ?:The relationship between agricultural land transfer and off-farm employment. We conduct an empirical research on this topic, and we also consider the effect of agricultural mechanization, agricultural labor force aging and feminine. The results show that:(1) Transfer market has become more active, farmers' off-farm employment can significantly promote the roll-out of land; but off-farm employment do not have a negative impact on land transfer. (2) Agricultural machine could slow the loss of labor effect, so it is a crucial factor in reducing farmers' tendency to transfer land out, and agricultural machine is also the key point that non-farm employment does not have an adverse affect on agricultural land circulation.(3) Aging has showing a negative impact on agricultural land circulation, this may lead to a lack of demand for land transfer, but feminine has no significant effect circulation market on the whole.Research ?:Off-farm employment, transfer of agricultural land and agricultural production change in investment. The results show that:(1) Off-farm employment has a significant negative impact on agricultural mobility inputs, but non-farm employment has no impact on agricultural machinery investment. (2) By using alternative variable regression model and instrumental variable model for robustness analysis, we find that non-farm employment still has a significant negative influence to farmers'productive investment, and off-farm employment still does not affect the farmers'agricultural machinery investment. (3)To test the mediating effect of agricultural land circulation, roll-out is not an intermediary variable for liquid investments, but it is an entire intermediary variable for agricultural machinery investment. At the same time, roll-in is not a partial mediating variable for liquid investments and agricultural machine investment.Research ?:Off-farm employment, transfer of agricultural land and labor supply changes of left behind. This part includes:(1) Off-farm employment has a significant negative impact on labor supply of left behind, and with the enhancement of family's off-farm employment rates, agricultural labor's working time and agricultural labor participation rates decrease accordingly. (2) In order to overcome the problem of endogeneity, using multiple instrumental variables for robust regression, including village level and family level social networks, non-agricultural employment still has a significant negative impact on labor input. Using PSM model to overcome sample selection bias, I still prove this founding. (3) Mediating effect analysis shows that off-farm employment not only directly affects the labor supply of left behind through "wealth effect" and "substitution effect", but also affect agricultural labor supply through intermediary mechanism. Transfer out can affect agricultural labor supply of left behind, while transfer in is not a mediating variable for off-farm employment to affect labor supply.Research ?:Off-farm employment, transfer of agricultural land and agricultural productivity changes. By applying simultaneous equation model, this section draws the following three conclusions:(1) Family off-farm employment rate has a negative impact on agricultural labor productivity and land productivity of rural households. (2) While transfer-in is not a significant factor for labor productivity, but it can enhance land productivity significantly. (3) Transfer-out always has no significant impact on labor productivity and land productivity.In addition to the advantage of a relatively new data source and a large sample size, compared with previous studies, innovations of this paper are as follows. Firstly and most importantly, this paper considers the joint effect of agricultural land circulation and off-farm employment on agricultural production. I expand the mechanism and verify whether payrolls affect agricultural production factors inputs and labor inputs through the intermediary. Second, as research methods, in addition to basic econometric model, I use variable substitution method, instrumental variables, PSM model, simultaneous equations models and other methods to deal with endogenous issues, and thus I draw a more reliable conclusion. Thirdly, the conclusions are relatively new. Compared with the previous research, this paper has found some new phenomena, which provides new evidence for understanding the interrelationship between off-farm employment, farmland circulation and agricultural production during the transition period.Finally, based on the conclusions and findings above, I propose specific policy recommendations.