IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ajosrd/198390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Study on Regional Specialization of China’s Agricultural Production: Recent Trends and Drivers

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Meilin
  • Steinbach, Sandro
  • Wu, Junqian

Abstract

The paper examines trends and drivers for regional specialization of China’s agricultural produc-tion for 2003-2011. We apply the Regional Specialization Index to a data set of commodities that covers 70 percent of China’s crop and livestock production. Actual prices at the provincial level are used and a seven-region framework is established that accurately reflects China’s agro-ecological characteristics. Our findings show that inequality of specialization among the Chinese regions has narrowed, with the year 2007 as a turning point. We argue that the enhanced regional specialization is due to less government intervention and more openness to international markets. Growing economic freedom, accompanied by intensified internal and external competition, has driven the regions to adjust agricultural production structures closely according to comparative advantages. Recent trends of specialization are identified and explained. Moreover, quantitative evidence to relevant agricultural policies is provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Meilin & Steinbach, Sandro & Wu, Junqian, 2014. "A Study on Regional Specialization of China’s Agricultural Production: Recent Trends and Drivers," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, Asian Economic and Social Society (AESS), vol. 4(02), pages 1-15, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ajosrd:198390
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.198390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/198390/files/2-426-4_2_2014-AJARD-113-127.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.198390?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allan N. Rae & Xiaohui Zhang, 2009. "China's booming livestock industry: household income, specialization, and exit," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(6), pages 603-616, November.
    2. Xiwen Chen, 2009. "Review of China's agricultural and rural development: policy changes and current issues," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 1(2), pages 121-135, January.
    3. Karl Aiginger & Stephen W. Davies, 2004. "Industrial specialisation and geographic concentration: Two sides of the same coin? Not for the European Union," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 7, pages 231-248, November.
    4. Deininger, Klaus & Olinto, Pedro, 2001. "Rural Nonfarm Employment and Income Diversification in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 455-465, March.
    5. Seong-Hoon Cho & Zhuo Chen & Neelam Poudyal, 2010. "Spatial structure of agricultural production in China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(16), pages 2031-2040.
    6. Nicole Palan, 2010. "Measurement of Specialization – The Choice of Indices," FIW Working Paper series 062, FIW.
    7. Young, Allyn A., 1928. "Increasing Returns and Economic Progress," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 38, pages 527-542.
    8. Colin A. Carter & Bryan Lohmar, 2002. "Regional Specialization of China's Agricultural Production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(3), pages 749-753.
    9. Wolf, Nikolaus, 2007. "Endowments vs. market potential: What explains the relocation of industry after the Polish reunification in 1918?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 22-42, January.
    10. Carter, Colin A. & Li, Xianghong, 2002. "Implications of World Trade Organisation accession for China’s agricultural trade patterns," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(2), pages 1-15.
    11. Karl Aiginger & Stephen W. Davies, 2004. "Industrial Specialisation and Geographic Concentration: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Not for the European Union," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 231-248, November.
    12. Colin A. Carter & Funing Zhong & Jing Zhu, 2012. "Advances in Chinese Agriculture and its Global Implications," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 34(1), pages 1-36.
    13. Huffman, Wallace E. & Evenson, Robert E., 2000. "Structural and productivity change in US agriculture, 1950-1982," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 127-147, January.
    14. Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura & Begoña García-Greciano & José Luis Raymond, 1999. "Regional Convergence in Productivity and Productive Structure: The Spanish Case," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 35-53, April.
    15. Douglass C. North, 1955. "Location Theory and Regional Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(3), pages 243-243.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meilin Ma & Sandro Steinbach & Junqian Wu, 2014. "A Study on Regional Specialization of China`s Agricultural Production: Recent Trends and Drivers," Asian Journal of Agriculture and rural Development, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(2), pages 113-127, February.
    2. Yang, Dan & Liu, Zimin, 2012. "Does farmer economic organization and agricultural specialization improve rural income? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 990-993.
    3. Nicole Palan, 2010. "Measurement of Specialization – The Choice of Indices," FIW Working Paper series 062, FIW.
    4. Wu, Yiyun & Zhu, Xiwei, 2017. "Why Geographic Dispersion Before Its Time: Industrial Policy and Economic Geography in the People’s Republic of China," ADBI Working Papers 633, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    5. Eleonora Cutrini, 2005. "The Balassa Index meets the Theil Index - a Decomposition Methodology for Location Studies," ERSA conference papers ersa05p123, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Haiqian Ke & Wenyi Yang & Xiaoyang Liu & Fei Fan, 2020. "Does Innovation Efficiency Suppress the Ecological Footprint? Empirical Evidence from 280 Chinese Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Cutrini, Eleonora, 2009. "Using entropy measures to disentangle regional from national localization patterns," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 243-250, March.
    8. Maria Tsiapa, 2014. "Industrial Concentration Patterns of the European Union," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(3), pages 5-33.
    9. D'artis Kancs, 2007. "Does Economic Integration Affect the Structure of Industries? Empirical Evidence from the CEE," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 73-97.
    10. Farid MAKHLOUF & Natalia VECHIU, 2010. "Economic Integration and Productive Specialization in the EU27: does FDI influence Countries’ Specialization?," Working Papers 2010-2011_6, CATT - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, revised Nov 2010.
    11. Anne Marie Gleeson & Frances Ruane & Julie Sutherland, 2006. "Promoting Industrial Clusters: Evidence from Ireland," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Ana Teresa Tavares & Aurora Teixeira (ed.), Multinationals, Clusters and Innovation, chapter 7, pages 107-119, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Aleksandra Parteka, 2010. "Employment and export specialisation along the development path: some robust evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(4), pages 615-640, January.
    13. Bickenbach, Frank & Bode, Eckhardt & Krieger-Boden, Christiane, 2010. "Structural cohesion in Europe: Stylized facts," Kiel Working Papers 1669, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Marie-Line Duboz & Rachel Guillain & Julie Le Gallo, 2009. "Les schémas de concentration sectorielle au sein de l’Union européenne : l’Est miroir de l’Ouest ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 423(1), pages 59-76.
    15. Palan, Nicole & Schmiedeberg, Claudia, 2010. "Structural convergence of European countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 85-100, May.
    16. Jiří Dvořáček, 2007. "Development of Manufacturing and its Enterprises on Beginning of the 21st century [Vývoj zpracovatelského průmyslu a průmyslových podniků na počátku 21. století]," Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2007(2), pages 6-16.
    17. Gianluca Cafiso, 2011. "Sectoral border effects and the geographic concentration of production," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(3), pages 543-566, September.
    18. Zheng, Dan & Shi, Minjun, 2018. "Industrial land policy, firm heterogeneity and firm location choice: Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 58-67.
    19. repec:agr:journl:v:3(604):y:2015:i:3(604):p:239-250 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Cynthia Sin Tian Ho & Björn Berggren, 2020. "The effect of bank branch closures on new firm formation: the Swedish case," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 65(2), pages 319-350, October.
    21. Frances Ruane & Xiaoheng Zhang, 2007. "Location Choices of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Europe after 1992," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp220, IIIS.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural Finance; Farm Management;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ajosrd:198390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aesstea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.