An Analysis Of Efficiency And Regional Comparative Advantage Of Oil Crops In China

Using modern production theory and methods of efficiency analysis and comparative advantage,this study proposes a theoretical framework on efficiency analysis and comparative advantage. Within this framework,efficiency changes and regional comparative advantage of china's oil crops are intensively analyzed. Fur more,international production advantage of China oil crops are investigated under the condition of china's entry into the WTO.Although the production of the oil crops has made some progress since the beginning of 1990s,the total outputs growth lagged behind that of demands,to which the high growth rate of the population and economy led. And the present gap keeps widening now.Beginning with the production of main oil crops,we analyze the situation of the inputs and outputs. The results tell us that the situation is serious. From 1993 to 1998,almost every kind of oil crops growth rate of cost is higher than that of incoming,so the profit decreased. Among several oil crops,the profit of the rapeseed is acceding to zero,and the decrease rate of pure profit of peanut is higher than others,which decrease rate in 6 years is 36%. Investigating from the component of the cost,the expenditure of the labor share about 60% in the total cost. The result also tells us the production of the china's oil crops is labor-intensive,and the degree of the mechanization is very low.Using the method of econometrical,the Technical Efficiency (TE),the resources Allocation Efficiency (AE) and Economy Efficiency (EE) are calculated for each main province from 1993 to 1998. The result shows that,the efficiency of each oil crops in every province is different. The technical efficiency remains at a high level except soybean. But the loss of the AE and EE is very serious. There is significant regional difference of TE in different areas. The east area kept its constant superiority to the other two areas.On the basis of the theory of comparative advantage,this research measures the potential comparative advantage and its process of change. The result shows that,owing to economic basis and natural resource,there is significant differenceof comparative advantage. Northeast and North china have comparative advantage of the production of soybean;Yun and Gui plateau have comparative advantage of cultivating rapeseed. But Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang,Anhui,Jiangxi provinces are lack of comparative advantage;Beijing,Hebei,Niaoning,Fujian,Shandong,Henan provinces have comparative advantage of cultivating peanut. The difference among regional comparative advantage has different reasons. Not only technical efficiency,but also scale advantage and benefit advantage can contribute to it. So we must emphasize on those three aspects,if we want to raise the level of comparative advantage.We also analyze the position of China's oil crops in the word market after China's entry into WTO. The study shows that China's oil crops meet with great challenges in the reasons of quality and the cost. Of course,some oil products have comparative advantage in the world,such as peanut and sesame. Finally,we analyze the main reasons of lack of comparative advantage and some advices are also proposed.The result of this research is helpful for our country to develop comparative advantage. And the research also provides a complete analytical framework to measure and analyze the production efficiency of agriculture and regional comparative advantage.