Spatial-Temporal Characteristics of Agriculture Green Total Factor Productivity in China, 1998–2016: Based on More Sophisticated Calculations of Carbon Emissions

Xiaocang Xu, Xiuquan Huang, Jun Huang, Xin Gao and Linhong Chen
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Xiaocang Xu: Research Center for Economy of Upper Reaches of the Yangtse River/School of Economics, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China
Xiuquan Huang: Research Center for Economy of Upper Reaches of the Yangtse River/School of Economics, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China
Jun Huang: Background Operation Center of Credit Card, China Minsheng Bank (Chengdu), Chengdu 610100, China
Xin Gao: Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Linhong Chen: School of Mathematics and Statistics, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing 400067, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-16

Abstract: Environmental costs should be taken into account when measuring the achievements of China’s agricultural development, since the long-term extensive development of agriculture has caused huge environmental pollution. This study took agricultural carbon emissions as an undesired output to estimate the agricultural development efficiency in 31 provinces of China from 1998 to 2016, based on the green total factor productivity, as assessed by the slacks-based measure directional distance function and constructing the global Malmquist–Luenberger index. We measured agricultural carbon emissions in terms of five aspects: agricultural materials, rice planting, soil, livestock and poultry farming, and straw burning, and then compared the green total factor productivity index and the total factor productivity index. The study came to the following conclusions: (1) the green technology efficiency change was smaller than the technology efficiency change at first, but the gap between them is narrowing with time, such that the former is now larger than the latter; (2) the green technology efficiency was in a declining state and the green technology progress was increasing, promoting the green total factor productivity growth, from 1998 to 2016; and (3) China’s agricultural green total factor productivity increased by 4.2% annually in the east, 3.4% annually in the central region, and 2.5% annually in the west.

Keywords: green total factor productivity; agricultural carbon emissions; spatio-temporal differentiation; spatial correlation; time evolution; carbon sources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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