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2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-08-2018-0169
The United Nations adopted 17 goals for sustainable development, which has been known as the 17 SDGs. Knowing how to achieve these goals will be very important for many countries. The first of the 17 is no poverty. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how to realize no poverty in UN’s SDGs by focusing on structural changes based on the New Structural Economics.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explains the relationship between structural changes and people’ s income in both rural and urban areas, and then introduces how to eliminate poverty from a New Structural Economics’ perspective. Finally, it discusses what to do to make these changes a reality.FindingsTo reduce and eventually eliminate poverty, increasing personal income becomes the first step. From national perspective, structural changes are related to an income increase. In rural and urban areas alike, the structural changes will usually be accompanied by new technologies and job opportunities, which will help people improve their incomes.Originality/valueThis paper explains relationship between structural changes and poverty elimination. How to increase people’s income is also discussed according to New Structural Economics. This paper’s findings may well be valuable for research on poverty elimination in the future.
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-08-2018-0162
Bottlenecked by rural underdevelopment, China’s overall development is bound to be inadequate and unbalanced. Through a brief retrospect of the reform directed against the “equalitarianism (egalitarianism)” in China’s rural areas, as well as the Chinese Government’s conceptual transformation and systemic construction and improvement thereof, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the panoramic significance of rural reform; the necessity, priority, and long-term nature of the current rural development; and the important role of public policy in doing so. It also looks ahead to consider the prospects for future rural reform.Design/methodology/approachThis paper first reviews the rural reforms that were carried out in 1978. Second, it introduces the government’s conceptual change regarding rural reform and the establishment and improvement of the system that underlies it. Finally, the future of rural reform is envisaged.FindingsThe initial rural reforms brought extensive and profound changes to China’s rural areas. The experience of rural reform has been referred to and escalated by other fields of study. Hence, rural reforms have become something of global significance. Moreover, since the government can undertake reforms well beyond the reach of farmers, its views must be modified in a timely manner, and only then may it reasonably construct and improve the system pertaining to the “three rural issues (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers).”Originality/valueThis paper reviews the rural reforms carried out in 1978. It introduces the government’s change of concept with respect to rural reforms and the establishment and improvement of the system based on the “three rural issues,” thus looking forward to the future of rural reforms. The findings of this paper are of significance to the formulation of future agricultural policies.
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-05-2018-0102
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure and changes of China’s land system. To achieve this aim, the paper is divided into four parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to the structural characteristics of the Chinese land institutional arrangements; the second part analyzes the reform process of the land system in the past 40 years and its path of change; the third part engages the discussion about the historic contribution made by the land institutional change to rapid economic growth and structural changes; and the final part is conclusion and some policy implications.Design/methodology/approachAfter 40 years of reforms and opening up, China has not only created a growth miracle unparalleled for any major country in human history, but also transformed itself from a rural to an urban society. Behind this great transformation is a systemic reform in land institutions. Rural land institutions went from collectively owned to household responsibility system, thereby protecting farmers’ land rights. This process resulted in long-term sustainable growth in China’s agriculture, a massive rural-urban migration and a historical agricultural transformation. The conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses and the introduction of market mechanisms made land a policy tool in driving high economic growth, industrialization and urbanization.FindingsResearch shows that the role of land and its relationship with the economy will inevitably change as China’s economy enters a new stage of medium-to-high speed growth. With economic restructuring, low-cost industrial land will be less effective. Urbanization is also shifting from rapid expansion to endogenous growth so that returns on land capitalization will decrease and risks will increase. Therefore, China must abandon land-dependent growth model through deepening land reforms and adapt a new pattern of economic development.Originality/valueThis paper gives a brief introduction to the structural characteristics of the Chinese land institutional arrangements, analyzes the reform process of the land system in the past 40 years and its path of change, and evaluates the historic contribution made by the land institutional change to rapid economic growth and structural changes.
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-11-2017-0220
The most recent and prestigious scientific research shows that nitrogen leaching caused by over-used nitrogen fertilizer rapidly acidifies all soil types in China, revolutionizing the basic understanding of the mechanism of soil acidification. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of nitrogen on soil acidity over the long run, which is the shadow price of nitrogen.Design/methodology/approachIn a discrete dynamic programming model, this paper compares the nitrogen application and soil pH between optimal nitrogen control that takes the shadow price of nitrogen into consideration and myopic nitrogen control that ignores that shadow price. Using a five-year panel experimental data on a rapeseed-rice rotation, this paper simulates and numerically solves the dynamic model.FindingsBoth theoretically and empirically, this paper shows that the over-use of nitrogen and the decline in soil pH are explained by ignorance of the shadow price of nitrogen. Compared with optimal nitrogen control, myopic nitrogen control applies more nitrogen in total, resulting in lower soil pH. In addition, over-use in the first season contributes to soil acidification and the carry-over effects mitigate that problem.Originality/valueThis paper enriches the literature by extending the study of the environmental impact of nitrogen leaching to its impact on the long-term loss in agricultural production, providing a new theoretical framework in which to study soil acidification rather than conventionally treating soil acidification as a secondary consequence of acid rain, and showing the possibility of using nitrogen control to mitigate soil acidification when lime applications are not feasible due to socio-economic constraints.
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-02-2019-0030
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the processes of (de)industrialization and rural income distribution interact with each other and their implications for economic growth and welfare.Design/methodology/approachThis paper takes a dynamic general-equilibrium and theoretical approach.FindingsThe author develops a dynamic general-equilibrium model to analytically characterize how (de) industrialization interacts with rural income distribution, and also explores the implications for aggregate GDP growth, the evolution of rural income distribution as well as welfare. Redistributive policies are shown to sometimes enhance GDP and welfare by boosting the production of the goods with high desirability (or productivity) but constrained by depressed demand due to income inequality, and internalizing the dynamic impact of private production and consumption decisions on future public productivities.Practical implicationsThe research suggests that rural income distribution and (de)industrialization are intrinsically related, so policies or institutional distortions on one process would, in general, affect the other. Redistributive policies are shown to sometimes enhance GDP and welfare by enhancing industrialization.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the literature of industrialization and structural change at large in several aspects. First, a key novel feature of our model is that the Engle’s law is captured by a quasi-linear utility function, which differs from the standard non-homothetic functions in this literature. Second, our paper contributes to the literature of structural change by showing how (de)industrialization works when sectorial productivity changes are endogenous. The paper also sheds light on the determination of rural income distribution and its evolution in the process of structural change and rural-urban migration.
Qing, Yi; Chen, Moyu; Sheng, Yu; Huang, Jikun
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-12-2018-0244
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of mechanization services on farm productivity in Northern China from an empirical perspective, with the aim to identify the underlying market and institutional barriers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply the regression method with the control of village fixed effects to examining the relationship between capital–labor ratio, mechanization service ratio and farm productivity, using the panel data collected in 2013 and 2015 by CCAP.FindingsMechanization services improve farm productivity through substituting labor, but it may generate a less positive impact on farms who do not have self-owned capital equipment.Originality/valueIt is the first study to investigate how mechanization services affect farm productivity for grain producers in Northern China.
Wang, Yuxin; Wang, Luxia; Wu, Huaqing; Zhu, Yangguang; Shi, Xing
2019 China Agricultural Economic Review
doi: 10.1108/caer-12-2018-0243
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social capital on the mental health of older adults in rural China. The authors also examine potential heterogeneous effects and two possible pathways from social capital increase to mental health improvement.Design/methodology/approachBased on a panel data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper employs a fixed effect model to examine the impact of social capital on health. A two-stage instrumental variable approach is adopted to alleviate the issue of endogeneity.FindingsResults demonstrate that social capital has improved the mental health of older adults in rural China significantly. The beneficial effect is stronger for female, people with lower income, aged people and mainly observed in the central and western regions. Social capital affects the mental health of rural older adults through raising the awareness of healthy behavior and lowering the searching cost of health-related information.Practical implicationsSocial capital plays a vital role in improving the mental health of older adults in rural China and is necessary for the construction of beautiful countryside in China. The authority should increase the investment in both the hard and soft infrastructure to improve the mental health of rural residents and narrow the inequality in health status.Originality/valueThis study enriches the empirical literature on the relationship between social capital and mental health by providing new evidence from China. Also, we choose the social activities and communications of individuals to construct a standardized index for social capital, which can better capture the social capital at the individual level.
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