Research, Productivity and Output Growth in Chinese Agriculture

Recent attempts to quantify the sources of growth in Chinese agriculture have all attributed an exceptionally large share of this growth to the contemporary market reforms within China. To analyze this important issue we use a newly constructed panel data set that includes an agricultural research or stock-of-knowledge variable. Our results suggest that, while still a significant source of growth, the longer-run, growth-promoting impacts coming as a direct consequence of these market reforms have been largely overstated by these earlier studies. Research-induced technical change accounts for about 20% of the growth in aggregate agricultural output since 1965. Disaggregating the results within China reveals substantial interregional variability in the sources of local growth, as would be expected in such a large and diverse country