Productivity and Convergence in European Agriculture

We investigate relative productivity levels and decompose productivity change for European agriculture between 2004 and 2013. Specifically (i) we contribute to the debate on whether agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP) has declined or not in the European Union (EU); (ii) we compare the relative TFP level across EU Member States and investigate the difference between ‘old’ Member States (OMS, i.e. the EU‐15) and ‘new’ Member States (NMS); and (iii) we test whether TFP is converging or not among Member States. The empirical analysis applies an aggregate quantity framework to country‐level panel data from the Economic Accounts for Agriculture for 23 EU Member States. The results imply that TFP has slightly decreased in the EU over the analysed period; however there are significant differences between the OMS and NMS and across Member States. Finally, our estimates suggest that productivity is generally converging over this period, albeit slowly.     

中国农业生产率增长、技术进步与效率变化：1990～2003年

本文运用非参数的Malmqusit指数法，研究了1990—2003年期间中国农业全要素生产率及其构成的时序成长和空间分布特征。结果表明，1990—2003年期间中国农业全要素生产率年均增长2．59％，其中，农业技术进步指数年均增长5．48％，而农业效率变化指数反而年均下降2．78％。从各省区情况看，测算的29个省、自治区和直辖市中除云南、内蒙古、上海、贵州和西藏的农业全要素生产率是负增长外，其它24个省、自治区和直辖市的农业全要素生产率都实现了正增长。从构成上看，绝大多数省区呈现出农业技术进步与农业效率损失并存的局面。     

Assessing Total Factor Productivity Growth in Sub‐Saharan African Agriculture

The importance of the agricultural sector in the economic development process is well known. Improvements in agricultural productivity are often found to spill into other areas of a developing economy, potentially improving the standards of living of urban and rural workers alike. Given the importance of this sector, accurate measures of total factor productivity (TFP) across countries can be helpful in identifying conditions, institutions or policies that promote agricultural development. In this article, we estimate TFP growth in agriculture for a panel of 39 sub‐Saharan African countries from 1961 to 2007. We also develop a set of development outcome measures theoretically consistent with strong agricultural performance to serve as external validation of our results. We find that three estimation methods (stochastic frontier, generalised maximum entropy, and Bayesian efficiency) generate relative rankings that are consistent with the development outcome measures, providing external validation of the methods. However, the data envelopment analysis approach performs poorly in this regard.     

公共投资对农业生产率和非农就业的影响研究

本文在分析我国农业生产率和农村地区劳动力非农就业现状的基础上，采用GMM方法检验了两者之间的因果关系，并在一个统一的分析框架下，通过构建联立方程模型具体分析了公共投资对农业生产率和非农就业的影响。研究结果表明，农业生产率和非农就业之间存在双向因果关系，非农就业水平的提高会促进农业生产率的增长，而农业生产率的增长反过来会进一步提高非农就业水平；公共投资对农业生产率和非农就业均有显著的正向影响，但不同类型的公共投资对农业生产率和非农就业的影响存在一定差异。     

中国传统农业生态思想与农业持续发展

中国传统农业生态思想的精髓是人与自然的和谐与统一。传统农业遵循“天人合一”架构下的天、地、人、物的协调统一 ,即视天地自然环境、动植物生长与人的实践活动为一有机整体。由此引导了生态化的农业理论和技术及其精耕细作的优良传统 ,维持了农业的持续发展。现代农业以化石能源投入为主 ,面临资源、环境、生态等一系列问题 ,影响了农业的持续发展。对此 ,许多国家开始转向 ,生态农业、绿色农业、环保农业等所谓“持续农业”模式纷纷登场 ,力求发展和持续并重。由此可见 ,中国传统农业生态思想对于现代农业持续发展具有一定的借鉴意义。     

The Creation and Spread of Technology and Total Factor Productivity in China's Agriculture

The overall goal of this study is to create a framework for assessing the trends of China's national and international investment in agricultural research and to measure its impact on total factor productivity. The main methodological contribution is to provide more convincing measures of crop–specific technologies from China's national research program and of those imported from the international agricultural research system. Our results find that from 1980 to 1995, China's total factor productivity for rice, wheat, and maize grew rapidly and new technology accounts for most of the productivity growth.     

The Source of Productivity Growth in Dutch Agriculture: A Perspective from Finance

In corporate finance, the impact of capital structure on firm performance has been widely studied. This article extends the capital structure study to the situation in agriculture, explicitly addressing the difference between family farms and corporate firms. We use the Malmquist productivity growth index as a proxy for performance to study the impact of capital structure (debt) on farm performance. We compare the results with those from the traditional performance model that uses profitability (e.g., return on equity (ROE)) as performance measure. Using data from Dutch arable farms, results show that debt has no effect on ROE, whereas it has a positive effect on productivity growth.     

对我国生态农业研究的若干思考

建设现代农业，发展农村经济，增加农民收入，是全面建设小康社会的重大任务。而大力发展生态农业，加大生态农业建设与可持续经营管理力度，则是推进新世纪我国现代农业与农村经济健康、快速与可持续发展的必由之路和根本任务，是整个中华民族生存与发展面临的重大课题。本文在分析国内外生态农业研究现状的基础上指出了当前深化生态农业研究的必要性和迫切性，并就2l世纪生态农业研究的新方向及我国加强生态农业研究的基本任务和重点问题进行了探讨。     

农户农业化学品投入的影响分析

农业化学品的使用在近30年来获得了极大的增长，到了需要考虑其投入产出边际效益的时候了。农业化学品价格的持续增长给衣户生产带来很大的经济负担；农业化学品的大量使用也正在日益出现重大的负面影响。需要从技术改良的角度考虑主要农作物农业化学品投入与产出的比较，从政策上推动衣户合理使用农业化学品。     

要素累积、全要素生产率与中国农业增长地区差异

本文在对改革开放以来中国农业的增长以及地区差异进行统计分析的基础上,提出一个待验证的假说:农业产出的省级地区差异主要来自于全要素生产率的差异.为验证该假说,本文使用随机前沿生产函数方法测算了各地区不同年份的要素弹性,据此将农业产出来源分为投入要素的累积和全要素生产率两个方面,并进一步采用方差分解的办法,考察了样本期间内农业产出的地区差异的来源.     

中国食品加工业劳动生产率收敛性分析

本文在分析我国食品加工业劳动生产率区域性差异的基础上 ,利用变异系数β和收敛的方法 ,对 1 993— 2 0 0 1年我国不同省间食品加工业劳动生产率的收敛性进行分析。结果发现 1 993— 1 996年我国各省劳动生产率差距在扩大 ,而 1 996— 2 0 0 1年的差距在缩小 ,1 993— 2 0 0 1年整个过程来看劳动生产率差距也在缩小。并且通过分析认为 2 0世纪 90年代中后期企业改革政策是造成我国食品加工业劳动生产率收敛的主要原因。     

构建中国农业生产效率的动态监测体系

生产率是经济持续增长过程中的一个极为重要的经济概念和指标。本文探讨了提高生产率(技术效率及生产效率等效率)对我国农业经济发展的重要性和迫切性，在对我国农业生产率发展的变动分析过程中，提出了建立适合我国国情的动态监测体系构想，通过对生产率的度量和分析，透析农业发展方向、技术体系中的结构缺陷及技术政策方面的偏差，促进我国农业的发展，增强竞争力。     

A Regional Analysis of Productivity Change in Canadian Agriculture, with Special Reference to Energy Prices

By using a profit specification for the agricultural sector instead of the conventional value-added production formulation, this paper explains changes to regional productivity in Canada in terms of changes in output prices, material prices, energy prices, capital deepening and technical progress. The results indicate that ignoring variable input and output price increases will generally result in an overstatement of the rate of technical progress. Most notably, in the 1973-79 period, energy price increases caused a reduction in average labor productivity, though increased capital deepening and rising output prices offset price increases for energy and other materials .
C'est en subsliluant une spécification du gain pour le secleur agricole à la formulation classique de la valeur ajoutée de la production, que cette communication explique les changements regionaux de la productivité au Canada en fonction des changements du rendement el des prix des matériaux el de ľénergie, en plus des changements du rapport capital/main-ďoeuvre el du progrès technique. Les résultals indiquent que si on ne tenait aucun compte des augmentations variables des prix ďenlrée el de sortie. ľaccélération du progrès technique serait, en général, exagéré. Pendant les années 1973 à 1979 en particulier, les augmentations des prix de ľénergie onl donné lieu à une réduction de la productivité moyenne de la main-ďoeuvre. Néanmoins, ľaugmentation du rapport capital/main-ďoeuvre el les prix croissants du rendement onl compensé les hausses des prix de ľénergie el ďaulres matériaux .     

近代华北的农业特点与生活周期

本文的主要目的是探讨农业程序与乡村生活的关系。一种作物的技术程序是一个完整的系统，这种系统具有长期的稳定性，是长期对环境适应的结果。华北的农村劳动力需求有双峰型特点，这种特点对华北农村生活周期产生了深远的影响，不但影响了劳动力市场，也影响到畜牧业和营养的周期，近代乡村生活的许多方面也是受这种双峰型曲线的影响。     

Women’s Labour Contribution to Productivity and Efficiency in Agriculture: Empirical Evidence From Bangladesh

This article examines the contribution of women’s labour input to productivity and efficiency in crop farming using a large survey dataset of 1,839 households from 16 villages in two agro‐ecological regions of Bangladesh. Results reveal that female labour accounts for a substantial 28% of total labour use (mainly supplied from the family) and contributes significantly to productivity as well as technical efficiency. Contrary to expectation, the cost share of female labour input is significantly higher than the male share, and has a substitution relationship with all other inputs, including male labour. The estimated mean level of technical efficiency is 0.90, implying that crop output might be increased by 10% by eliminating technical inefficiency. Both male and female education have a significant impact on improving technical efficiency. Other significant technical efficiency shifters are farming experience, family size and crop diversification. Owner operators are found to be technically inefficient relative to the tenants. Policy implications include creation of a hired labour market for female labour so that more women can be involved in the production process, and can contribute to towards improving productivity and efficiency. In addition, investment in education for both men and women, strategies to promote crop diversification and effective regulation/modification of the tenancy market will significantly improve technical efficiency in this case.     

Post-War Productivity Patterns in U.S. Agriculture: Influences of Aggregation Procedures in a State-Level Analysis

Annual data for forty-eight states are used to account for changes in the composition of input and output aggregates over space and time, and thereby to obtain new evidence on changes in inputs, outputs, and productivity in U.S. agriculture. The measures change significantly when we use state-specific rather than national prices and when we allow for changes in the composition of the aggregates, especially of labor and capital inputs. We compare our estimates and those reported by Ball et al. ( American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81(1999):164–79). The national estimates are similar but substantial differences are found in state-level productivity growth.