Total Factor Productivity in Chinese agriculture: The role of infrastructure

Abstract

This paper uses the Malmquist index to examine the sources of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in Chinese agriculture. The overall goal of this study is to create a framework for assessing the trend of China s agricultural infrastructure and to measure its impact on Total Factor Productivity. The main methodological contribution is to provide more contributive measure of crop-specific technologies. Based on the province-level panel data set during 1988 2002, the primary finding is that infrastructure has positively and statistically significant association with the estimated coefficient on Total Factor Productivity for rice, wheat, maize, and bean.