The Impact of Factor Price Change on China’s Cotton Production Pattern Evolution: Mediation and Spillover Effects

Xuewei Zhang, Xiqing Zhou, Haimeng Liu (), Jinghao Zhang, Jingde Zhang () and Suhao Wei
Additional contact information
Xuewei Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010020, China
Xiqing Zhou: School of Economics, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China
Haimeng Liu: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Jinghao Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010020, China
Jingde Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010020, China
Suhao Wei: School of Public Administration, Jilin University, Changchun 130103, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Cotton is an important agricultural crop and strategic resource. China is currently the country with the largest global cotton production and consumption, but few studies have systematically analyzed the dynamic relationship between factor price change (FPC) and cotton production pattern evolution (CPPE). Based on provincial panel data from the main cotton planting areas from 1985 to 2021, this paper used spatial econometric models to empirically analyze the impact of FPC including labor price, production material cost, and mechanical cost on CPPE from the perspective of mechanical substitution difficulty. The findings are that (1) FPC significantly affected CPPE, specifically the rise of labor price induced the demand for mechanical substitution, resulting in a significant cotton agglomeration effect; (2) spatial econometric analysis found that FPC had a significant spatial spillover effect on CPPE in adjacent regions; and (3) the transfer analysis found that higher mechanical substitution difficulty exerted an inhibitory effect on cotton planting, leading to a gradual shift of the main cotton planting areas from the Yangtze River Basin and Yellow River Basin with high labor prices to the Northwest Inland region with lower labor prices. Updating the production technology and improving the efficiency of cotton specialization are effective strategies. The results are valuable for policy making related to the development of China’s cotton industry.

Keywords: factor price change; mechanical substitution difficulty; cotton production pattern; spatial spillover effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1145/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1145/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:7:p:1145-:d:1435270

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().