The Effect of Off-Farm Employment on Agricultural Production Efficiency: Micro Evidence in China

Ming Chang, Jing Liu, Hongxu Shi and Tianfeng Guo
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Ming Chang: Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Jing Liu: Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Hongxu Shi: School of Agriculture Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Tianfeng Guo: Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: With ensuring food security becoming a priority for the Chinese government, the prevalence of off-farm employment (OE) may cast a shadow on agricultural productivity. Based on the data of the China Family Panel Studies in 2018, the Tobit model and threshold effect model have been applied to investigate the impact of off-farm employment on agricultural productivity efficiency (APE), measured by data envelopment analysis (DEA). The result has shown that: (1) OE contributes to a low level of APE. (2) Both self-employed off-farm employment (SOE) and wage-based off-farm employment (WOE) result in lower APE levels when endogenous issues are addressed. However, SOE had a greater negative impact on APE than WOE. (3) There exists a threshold for OE associated with a lower level of APE, indicating that the negative effect of OE on APE disappears when the degree of OE is high enough, SOE has a lower threshold than WOE. The study findings have implications for improving agricultural production efficiency in the context of large-scale off-farm employment of Chinese farmers.

Keywords: off-farm employment; agricultural production efficiency; Tobit model; threshold effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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