Do Agglomeration Externalities Increase the Total Factor Productivity of Farm Households?
Technological progress and improvements in technical efficiency are critical for promot-ing high-quality development of the food industry and ensuring food security.As rice cultivation scales up and the density of rice farmers increase,the agglomeration externality formed by the spatial concentra-tion of factors can not only effectively enhance the technological level of the industry,but also reduce the technological non-efficiency of rice farmers.Based on 1,248 rice farmers'microdata during 2014-2020 in Hunan Province,the transcendental logarithmic stochastic frontier production function model is used to incorporate the planting scale and rice farmer density-key indicators of agglomeration economic effects-into the frontier function and the technical non-efficiency term at the same time,and to comprehensively investigate the impact of agglomeration externalities on the total factor productivity of rice farmers.The findings reveal that:both rice planting scale and rice farmer density significantly promote the technical progress of rice production and enhance the technical efficiency of farmers.The positive output elastici-ties of these agglomeration variables collectively contribute to an outward shift in the rice production fron-tier.Additionally,the results from heterogeneous regressions based on planting area of the sub-topography and the sub-farmer align with the baseline results,confirming their robustness.Based on these findings,it is recommended to improve infrastructure in rice-growing areas,use land policies to meet the needs of farmers,and enhance the efficiency of agricultural production.It is also advisable to use land remediation and other means of farmland construction to address the problem of fragmentation,and promote the specialization and scaling up of production in villages and groups;and give full play to the economies of scale and density of rice cultivation by reforming the land system,strengthening the supportive policies,and optimizing the agricultural structure in conjunction with the local realities,so as to increase the total factor productivity.
agglomeration economyscale of cultivationrice farmer densitytechnical effi-ciencyoutput elasticity
万方数据
维普
