Off-farm employment over the past four decades in rural ChinaZhang, Linxiu; Dong, Yongqing; Liu, Chengfang; Bai, Yunli
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-11-2017-0212
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the trend of off-farm employment in rural China over the past four decades since the reform and opening-up.Design/methodology/approachUsing two sets of panel survey data, the China National Rural Survey conducted in 2000 and 2008, and the China Rural Development Survey conducted in 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2016, this study offers a re-visit of China’s off-farm employment to give us the latest information about its evolution and whether rural labor markets have developed in a way that will allow them to facilitate the transformation of China’s economy more effectively. The evolution of off-farm employment is further examined through decomposition of types, destinations, industries, and population sub-groups as well as the change in the wage rate.FindingsThe data show the rapid increase in rural labor activities over the whole study period. Most notably, the authors findnd that a rapid rise in off-farm employment has continued even until after 2008 and into the mid-2010s, which is a time when some feared that macroeconomic conditions might keep rural residents on the farm or drive them back to the farm. In the disaggregation of labor market trends, the authors show that labor markets are acting consistently with an economy that is in transition from being dominated by agriculture to being dominated by other forms of production and with a population that is consistently becoming more urban.Originality/valueThe authors believe that the results will contribute positively to the exploration of answers to the question whether or not rural labor markets have developed in a way that will allow them to facilitate the transformation of China’s economy more effectively over the last four decades.
Returns to public agricultural and rural investments in ChinaFan, Shenggen; Cho, Emily EunYoung; Rue, Christopher
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-11-2017-0211
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review China’s past returns in a period over the last 40 years to public agricultural and rural investments to highlight the importance for future strategic investments in China’s agri-food system and in rural areas.Design/methodology/approachThe paper synthesizes research findings from previous studies and reviews more recent trends. Based on the main findings, the authors provide forward-looking guidance for China’s investments agriculture and rural areas in the context of emerging global and domestic trends in agriculture, food security, and nutrition.FindingsPublic investments in the agricultural research and development (R&D), rural education, and rural infrastructure have been shown to have significant positive returns to agricultural growth as well as to reductions in poverty and regional inequality. Returns to overall agricultural GDP were highest for agricultural R&D, followed by education, roads, and telephones. Investment in education had the greatest returns to poverty reduction, as well as to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP. Investment in agricultural R&D had the second greatest returns in term of poverty reduction, and was also a close second in returns to nonfarm GDP and overall rural GDP following education. The rural infrastructure spending also saw significant returns to poverty reduction, largely through growth in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. Investments in agriculture and rural areas will continue to be important, as China and the world face emerging challenges amidst a changing global landscape, particularly regarding climate change, rapid urbanization, nutritional imbalances, and food safety concerns. In addressing these emerging challenges, continued support for agricultural R&D and innovations can play a key role.Originality/valueThe paper highlights research findings on key investment areas that will be increasingly important for China’s agri-food system, and provides guidance in the context of emerging trends impacting food security and nutrition.
Rural energy policy in ChinaHe, Ling-Yun; Hou, Bingdong; Liao, Hua
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-10-2017-0190
PurposeRural energy policy is a critical measure to fight the long-standing poverty issue in China. Energy poverty, per se, is one important yet too often neglected dimension of poverty, and one of the biggest challenges in rural China during the 40-year rural reform. Reducing energy poverty is one of the poverty alleviation tasks and the goals of energy transition in the rural areas. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the status of energy poverty in China, discussing the challenges of energy poverty reduction, and then proposing the potential measures.Design/methodology/approachUsing various data (including the authors’ survey data), this paper analyzes the volume and structure of energy use, and affordability of energy for the rural households, then examines the impacts of energy poverty on health, social and productivity, and finally discusses the infrastructure, cognitive ability, culture, income, etc., that shape the challenges to energy poverty reduction.FindingsIn addition to raising the household income, it is urgently needed to enforce the collaborations among government departments, and to improve the energy infrastructure according to local conditions, helping the residential environment cognition.Originality/valueEnergy poverty is almost a too often neglected issue in rural China. Few in existing literature comprehensively investigate this critically important social economic problem. This paper contributes to the profound understanding in energy poverty and the possible approaches to alleviate it.
Poverty alleviation in rural China: policy changes, future challenges and policy implicationsLiu, Yansui; Guo, Yuanzhi; Zhou, Yang
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-10-2017-0192
PurposePoverty alleviation is a global challenge. Human society has never ceased to fight against poverty. China was once the developing country with the largest rural poor population in the world. Remarkable achievements have been made in China’s antipoverty program over the past decades, shaping a unique poverty reduction strategy with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to first review the history of China’s rural reform and antipoverty, and then analyze the related policy systems, mechanism innovations and future challenges in poverty alleviation and development. At last, some specific policy implications were provided.Design/methodology/approachLiterature on China’s antipoverty history was reviewed and mechanism innovations on targeted poverty alleviation strategy were investigated.FindingsAlong with the deepening of the rural reform, the poverty alleviation and development in new China have undergone six stages, and experienced a transformation from relief-oriented to development-oriented poverty alleviation. The object of poverty alleviation has gradually targeted with a transformation from poor counties/areas to villages/households, and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation is also gradually improved. However, the increase in the difficulty of antipoverty, fragile ecological environment, rapid population aging and rural decline poses challenges to the construction of a well-off society in an all-round way in China. Specific antipoverty measures were put forward based on the investigation. Finally, the authors emphasize the importance of strengthening the study of poverty geography.Originality/valueThis study investigates the history of China’s antipoverty policy and analyzes the future challenges for implementing targeted poverty alleviation policy. These findings will lay a foundation for the formulation of China’s antipoverty policies after 2020, and provide experience for poverty alleviation in other developing countries around the world.
China’s urban-rural relationship: evolution and prospectsZhang, Zhenghe; Lu, Yawen
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-02-2018-0038
PurposeIn the 69 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, especially the 40 years since the reform and opening-up, the relationship between urban and rural areas has undergone profound change. When the deepening reform of the urban-rural relationship is entering a critical period, it is necessary to reassess the evolution of the urban-rural relationship in China and draw a picture for that relationship in the future. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper combs the policies on the urban and rural development since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and analyzes macro data on the industries, population, personal income, and other aspects.FindingsThe study found that this urbanism affects individuals’ lives and the choices of society through the will of the state, and then provides feedback at the whole level of social values.Originality/valueThis paper divides the evolution of China’s urban-rural relationship into two major stages – nurturing cities with rural areas and leading rural areas with cities, which are then subdivided into five periods. The features of the relationship between the urban and rural areas in different periods are analyzed, and the future development of urban-rural relations is also considered.
Will farmland transfer reduce grain acreage? Evidence from Gansu province, ChinaLiu, Ying; Wang, Chenggang; Tang, Zeng; Nan, Zhibiao
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-04-2017-0072
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of farmland renting-in on planted grain acreage.Design/methodology/approachA survey data of five counties were analyzed with the two-stage ordinary least squares model.FindingsHouseholds renting-in land trended to plant more maize, and the more land was rented by a household the more maize was planted, while wheat acreage showed non-response to farmland renting-in.Practical implicationsOverall, the analysis suggests that policy makers should be prepared for different changing trends of grain crop acreage across the nation as farmland transfer continues. Future research should pay attention to the effect of farmland transfer on agricultural productivity and rural household income growth.Originality/valueAs the Chinese Government is promoting larger-scale and more mechanized farms as a way of protecting grain security, it is important to understand whether farmland renting-in will reduce planted grain acreage. This study provides empirical evidence showing the answer to that question may differ across different regions and depend on the particular grain crop in question.
Dynamic and static analysis of agricultural productivity in ChinaDiao, Panpan; Zhang, Zhonggen; Jin, Zhenyong
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-08-2015-0095
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and input redundancies in different regions of China, and to bring out the policy implications for improving efficiency in agricultural production as well as environment protection.Design/methodology/approachBased on the provincial panel data during 1995-2014, the agricultural productivity of China and its regional disparity are analyzed. First, the agricultural TFP and its decomposition are dynamically evaluated by means of data envelopment analysis-Malmquist productivity index. Second, the agricultural radial production efficiency in year 2014 and the input redundancy changes from 1995 to 2014 are measured based on the BCC-slacks-based measure model.FindingsThe results showed that the overall agricultural TFP of China grew 4.3 percent annually during 1995-2014, mainly as a result of technical progress. However, the declines of technical efficiency and scale efficiency slowed down the agricultural TFP growth. The TFP growth in the Western region and Central region far exceeded the Eastern region in last few years. In 2014, most effective decision-making units were in the Western region. The input redundancies in the agricultural production increased substantially after 2006, especially for the pesticide use amount, reservoir capacity and agricultural machinery power.Originality/valueCombining the dynamic and static analyses, the paper fulfilled the study of China’s agricultural productivity and the input redundancies in recent years, and also presented the regional disparities.
Market power, scale economy and productivity: the case of China’s food and tobacco industryDai, Jiawu; Li, Xun; Cai, Hailong
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-03-2017-0040
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to measure and examine the relationships between market power, scale economy and productivity for several important food and tobacco industries in China.Design/methodology/approachThe model applied in this paper is based on Hall’s framework (Hall, 1988, 1990) and Klette (1999). The paper relaxes the assumption of constant returns to scale, and estimates market power and rate of returns to scale simultaneously, and then employs a covariance approach to examine the relationship between market power, scale economy and productivity via an unbalanced panel data at firm level.FindingsEmpirical results indicate that all the selected seven food industries are characterized with significant market power, especially for China’s cigarette industry whose markup is as almost five times as the smallest one. In addition, China’s soybean and cigarette sectors are manifested to have scale economy, with return to scale being larger than 1, while the other five sectors are proved to have decreasing returns to scale. Empirical results also provide evidence to support significant negative correlations between market power and scale economy in all sectors, and negative correlations between market power and productivity in most of the selected sectors. While more heterogeneous relationship between scale economy and productivity are found across the selected sectors.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to examine the relationship between market power, scale economy and productivity empirically for Chinese food manufacturers using a firm-level unbalanced panel data. Results which coincide well with the reality provide policy implication on understanding the situation of market structure for China’s food and tobacco industry.
Do agricultural services contribute to cost saving? Evidence from Chinese rice farmersTang, Liqun; Liu, Qiang; Yang, Wanjiang; Wang, Jianying
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-06-2016-0082
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to clarify agricultural services into five categories, including agricultural materials supply service, financial service, technical service, machinery service and processing and sales service, and to examine the effect of agricultural services on cost saving of rice production in China.Design/methodology/approachBased on a three-year panel data set covering 3,421 rice farmers in 12 Chinese provinces collected from the state rice industry experiment stations’ fixed watch points of China Agriculture Research System, a stochastic frontier model which takes the price vectors of input variables into cost function is developed by stochastic frontier analysis method in the study.FindingsThere is a deviation between the actual cost and the minimum cost on rice production in China due to the loss of cost efficiency, whose score is 0.7983 at the mean. Agricultural services can help improve cost efficiency, thus contributing to cost saving. Specifically, the effect of technical service on cost saving is the highest, followed by processing and sales service, machinery service, financial service and agricultural materials supply service.Originality/valueThe results of this paper are of great significance to the effectiveness and efficiency of the targeted agricultural services and indicate implications for policy improvement under the context of clear upward trend of agricultural production costs.
Off-farm employment, land renting and concentration of farmland in the process of urbanizationSu, Weiliang; Eriksson, Tor; Zhang, Linxiu
2018 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/CAER-10-2016-0169
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of off-farm employment on the concentration of farmland via households’ land rental activities in rural China.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses Probit and Tobit models to estimate the effect of off-farm employment on land rental activities. Furthermore, the paper compares the degree of land concentration between pre-renting and post-renting in terms of Gini coefficients of farmland ownership at village level.FindingsThe authors find that off-farm employment has a positive effect on the renting out farmland, and insignificant effect on renting in farmland. Moreover, off-farm employment intensifies the concentration of farmland from small farms toward big farms by renting activities.Originality/valueThe authors believe that the results will contribute positively to the assessment of the effect of off-farm employment on land concentration in the context of the urbanization process in China.