West Institute for Economic Research, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China.
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 2;19(23):16175. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192316175.
The active land rental market affects inter-household efficiency. Using nationally representative household panel data in China from 2017 to 2019, we estimate rural household efficiency with consideration of diversification, and analyze the effect of land rental market participation on household efficiency using a control function approach. Results show that: (1) the mean technical efficiency and allocative efficiency were 0.45 and 0.64 in 2017 and 0.44 and 0.66 in 2019, respectively, suggesting the existence of efficiency loss; (2) land rented-in activities improve rural households' technical efficiency but not allocative efficiency; (3) land rented out activities decrease household technical efficiency but increase allocative efficiency. Further analysis showed that farm size heterogeneity might be the main reason for the efficiency difference. Households with large farms and plot sizes on rented land have significant advantages in technical efficiency and insignificant impacts on allocative efficiency. The results explain why the land rental market promotes efficient land transfer, but households with a large farm size are still rare in rural areas. Finally, we provide suggestions on how to stimulate the land rental market under diversification circumstances.
活跃的土地租赁市场影响农户间效率。本文利用中国 2017 年至 2019 年的全国代表性农户面板数据，在考虑农户多样化经营的基础上对农户效率进行估计，并采用控制函数法分析土地租赁市场参与对农户效率的影响。结果表明：（1）2017 年和 2019 年的平均技术效率和配置效率分别为 0.45 和 0.64，0.44 和 0.66，表明存在效率损失；（2）土地流入活动提高了农户的技术效率，但没有提高配置效率；（3）土地流出活动降低了农户的技术效率，但提高了配置效率。进一步的分析表明，农地规模异质性可能是效率差异的主要原因。租用土地面积大的农户在技术效率方面具有显著优势，对配置效率的影响不显著。研究结果解释了为什么土地租赁市场促进了土地的有效流转，但农村地区仍以小农户为主。最后，本文就如何在多样化经营情况下激发土地租赁市场活力提出了相关建议。
