TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to perform an investigative analysis of the distribution of agricultural growth in China and the evolution of the decision mechanism.Design/methodology/approach– The kernel density estimation method was used to investigate the distribution of agricultural growth in China using 1988‐2008 panel data of the 29 provinces on the mainland. A nonparametric income distribution approach was employed to decompose China's agricultural output growth into farmland accumulation, capital deepening, labor‐scale change, technical change, and efficiency change based on stochastic frontier function. A further investigation of the evolution of the decision mechanism for agricultural growth was then performed using counterfactual analysis.Findings– The results of this analysis indicate that: from 1996, the distribution of agricultural output per worker evolved from a unimodal into a bimodal distribution; technical change is the primary impetus to distribution shift; and capital deepening and efficiency change play a dominant role in the deformation of the distribution of agricultural output per worker from a unimodal to a bimodal distribution.Originality/value– The paper is an original work and its methodology makes a meaningful contribution to understanding China's agricultural growth. That is, the use of income distribution analysis method to analyze agricultural growth does not only allow a more in‐depth understanding of the gap between regional agricultural growth rates, but also makes up for the existing lack of convergence in agricultural growth in China.
VL  - 3
IS  - 2
SN  - 1756-137X
DO  - 10.1108/17561371111131290
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/17561371111131290
AU  - Yu Kang
AU  - Xin Xiangfei
AU  - Alexander Nuetah J.
AU  - Guo Ping
PY  - 2011
Y1  - 2011/01/01
TI  - Agricultural growth dynamics and decision mechanism in Chinese provinces: 1988‐2008
T2  - China Agricultural Economic Review
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 150
EP  - 170
Y2  - 2024/05/10
ER  -