Abstract
This paper probes effects of the evolvement of labor resources on technical efficiency in crop production in rural China. Based on twelve years of data on crop production of 30 provinces in China, a stochastic frontier production function model is used to measure crop production efficiency in three crop-functional areas—the production area, the consumption area, and the balanced area. Then effects of both quantity and quality change in labor force on technical efficiency in different regions of China are analyzed. Results show that rural China generally has an increasing number of employees shifted to non-agricultural sectors and a decreasing trend of the stock of human capital. However, both these two changes in rural labor force have significantly positive effects on improving crop production efficiency. In addition, China’s technical inefficiency is at an average of 22.2%. Dynamically, the technical efficiencies show a tendency to rise steadily throughout China and in three areas, while the consumption area possesses the highest technical efficiency. Those results may lend some experience for other countries that are currently experiencing rural labor force and economic transition.
Highlights
Economic growth of traditional agriculture depends largely on the initial endowments mainly including labor and land input, whereas the engine for modern agricultural growth has been proved to be factors such as capital input and well-qualified labor input [1,2]
The production area has an absolute advantage in factor input volume; when labor resources are focused on, we find that the migration scale in the production area and the balanced area are roughly close, while the stock of human capital varies in each area
As the migration is increasing, rural China experiences a descending stock of human capital. Both quantity and quality change in rural labor force have contributed to this decrease
Summary
Economic growth of traditional agriculture depends largely on the initial endowments mainly including labor and land input, whereas the engine for modern agricultural growth has been proved to be factors such as capital input and well-qualified labor input [1,2]. Existing methods of measuring technical efficiency include stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) [4,5]; factors influencing technical efficiency cover human capital, family characteristics, agricultural public investment, transport infrastructure, and other social elements [6,7]. Among these factors, human capital shows a significantly positive impact on technical efficiency in many fields [8,9] and plays an important role in explaining regional differences of technical efficiency [10]. For the purpose of ensuring the long-term sustainable development of the Chinese economy, increasing the investment of human capital and improving the efficiency of technology application and crop production are of particular importance
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