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Green growth and structural change in Chinese agricultural sector during 1997–2014

Author

Listed:
  • Shen, Zhiyang
  • Baležentis, Tomas
  • Chen, Xueli
  • Valdmanis, Vivian

Abstract

Green growth has become a new direction for Chinese economic development in the 21st century. Indeed, sustainable agricultural development is particularly important in China due to limits on resources and the presence of the largest population in the world. In this paper, we propose a novel decomposition of the overall inefficiency into three components of technical, mix, and scale effects at aggregate level by allowing for desirable and undesirable outputs in a non-parametric framework. We empirically investigate economic and environmental performance associated with resource misallocation (represented by input/output mix) in Chinese agricultural sector across the 31 provinces over the period 1997–2014. Our results show that average overall inefficiency in Chinese agricultural sector is 9.13% during the sample period, which suggests there exists a 7.94% possible improvement for gross output value and 1.19% potential reduction for carbon emission. Moreover, we find inefficiency is mainly due to the mix effect that requires an improvement in reallocation of inputs and this may be related to the ongoing supply side structural reforms in China. We also present a dual model of by-production technology for shadow price analysis and report upward trended carbon abatement costs in Chinese agriculture.

Suggested Citation

  • Shen, Zhiyang & Baležentis, Tomas & Chen, Xueli & Valdmanis, Vivian, 2018. "Green growth and structural change in Chinese agricultural sector during 1997–2014," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 83-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:51:y:2018:i:c:p:83-96
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2018.04.014
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Structural efficiency; Mix efficiency; Environmental efficiency; Chinese agriculture; Carbon shadow prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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