Do Poor Rural Households Produce Less Grain than Non‐poor Rural Households

• Author: Ling Ma,Xiaoyun Liu,Xian Xin
• Date: 01 November 2013
• Published date: 01 November 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-124X.2013.12044.x

22 China & World Economy / 22–36, Vol. 21, No. 6, 2013

©2013 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Do Poor Rural Households Produce Less Grain

than Non-poor Rural Households

Ling Ma, Xiaoyun Liu, Xian Xin*

Abstract

China’s poor rural households produce substantially less grain compared with non-poor

rural households. The present paper applies a decomposition approach and uses China’s

rural household survey data to investigate the causes of this grain output gap. The paper

first compares the grain output gap between poor and non-poor rural households, and then

decomposes the gap into differences in yield and area sown . The results indicate that the gap

in grain output mainly results from differences in the amount of inputs used in production.

Differences in the number of labor days and the level of intermediate inputs account for 13.6

and 47.5 percent of the gap, respectively. Poor rural households are also less efficient in

their use of intermediate inputs, which contributes to 13.2 percent of the gap. However, the

efficiency of poor households’ labor days reduces the gap by 7.2 percent, while agricultural

physical capital, household head education and agricultural training have no substantial

impact on the household grain output gap.

Key words: decomposition, grain output, inputs, poor

JEL codes: I32, Q12, Q18

I. Introduction

Contrary to the conventional view that poor farmers are better at planting grains in the

*Ling Ma, lecturer and PhD candidate, College of Economics and Management and Center for Rural

Development Policy, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. Email: xbml@cau.edu.cn; Xiaoyun

Liu, Professor, College of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.

Email: liuxy@cau.edu.cn. Xian Xin (corresponding author), Professor, Center for Rural Development

Policy, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. Email: xinxian@cau.edu.cn. The authors are grateful

for suggestions and comments from Dr Guanghua Wan of the Asian Development Bank, Professors

Xiuqing Wang and Pei Guo of China Agricultural University, Professors John Whalley and Terry Sicular

of the University of Western Ontario, and participants of the International Development Research

Centre seminars. The authors would also like to acknowledge support from the International Development

Research Centre/Centre for International Governance Innovation, and the Young China Scholars Research

and Policy Engagement Network.