Estimating Crop-Specific Production Technologies in Chinese Agriculture: A Generalized Maximum Entropy Approach |
| |
Authors: | Xiaobo Zhang & Shenggen Fan |
| |
Institution: | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| |
Abstract: | A generalized maximum entropy approach is adapted to empirically estimate crop-specific production technologies in Chinese agriculture. Despite a modest behavioral assumption about equal marginal returns of nonland inputs among crops, this method does not require price information, which is usually distorted in a centrally planned economy such as China. A multi-output technology for Chinese agriculture is estimated and input allocations for each province are recovered simultaneously. The estimated multi-output production technology and input allocations imply that China may have greater grain production potentials than previously thought. |
| |
Keywords: | Chinese agriculture generalized maximum entropy input allocation production analysis technological change |
|