Hongxiao Zhang

The development of rural e-commerce has significant value for regional economic development in developing countries. Its sustainable development depends on whether e-commerce can promote endogenous capital accumulation at the county level. This study uses panel data from 649 Chinese counties from 2013 to 2022, together with nighttime light remote-sensing data, to examine how variation in e-commerce development intensity affects county-level economic vitality from the perspective of capital formation. The results show that e-commerce development intensity is associated with stronger county-level economic vitality. The mediation analysis provides differentiated evidence for the capital formation mechanism: fixed asset investment mainly exhibits a delayed indirect effect, whereas loan balances and firm stock operate mainly through contemporaneous channels. However, the county-level economic effect of e-commerce shows regional heterogeneity. Based on the above findings, this paper proposes policy recommendations for the further development of e-commerce, as the economic benefits of e-commerce are significant in relatively developed counties in eastern China but insignificant in non-eastern regions.

The development of a forestry carbon sink project is an important way to achieve carbon neutrality and carbon reduction, and the collective forest carbon sink project is an important part of China’s forestry carbon sink project. As the main management entity of collective forests, whether farmers are willing to produce forestry carbon sinks is directly related to the implementation effect of the project. In this paper, a partial equilibrium model of farmers’ forestry production behavior was established based on production function and utility function, and the path to enhance farmers’ willingness to produce forestry carbon sink through forestry carbon sink projects was analyzed in combination with forest ecological management theory. In terms of empirical analysis, the PSM-DID econometric model was established based on the survey data of LY in Zhejiang Province, China, and the following conclusions were drawn: (1) With the receipt of revenues from forestry carbon sequestration projects and partial cost-sharing by the government, farmers’ participation in forestry carbon sink projects can save investment in forest land management. (2) The saved forestry production costs and forestry carbon sink project subsidies can make up for the loss of farmers’ timber income, so that the net income of forestry will not be significantly reduced. (3) The forestry production factors saved by farmers can be transferred to non-agricultural sectors and increase non-agricultural net income, so that the net income of rural households participating in forestry carbon sink projects will increase. The forestry carbon sink project can improve the utility level of farmers and increase the willingness of farmers to produce forestry carbon sinks by delivering income to farmers and saving forestry production factors. This study demonstrates that a well-designed forestry carbon sink compensation mechanism, combined with an optimized allocation of production factors, can effectively enhance farmers’ willingness to participate. This insight is also applicable to countries or regions that rely on small-scale forestry operations.

China’s agriculture is increasingly becoming more specialized. However, specialized production has disrupted traditional farming culture and may threaten sustainable mental health. This study takes Chinese farmers’ subjective happiness and agricultural production outsourcing as the research object, in an attempt to reveal the possible unhappy impacts of Chinese-style agricultural specialization represented by agricultural production outsourcing. First, we construct a theoretical framework of the relationship between agricultural production outsourcing and farmers’ subjective well-being. Secondly, based on more than 3800 household survey data collected by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2020, we use the classical econometrics and psychological analysis methods such as the Ordered Probit model and the instrumental variable estimation to conduct a rigorous impact assessment. The results show that for every doubling of agricultural outsourcing expenditure, the probability that farmers think they are very happy decreases by about 21%, and the probability that they think they are relatively happy decreases by about 9%. The groups affected by the negative psychological impact mainly include farmers growing rice and corn, farmers in hills and mountains, and farmers with small-scale operations. Further analysis shows that outsourcing risks, the weakening of farmers’ professional autonomy, and family split caused by agricultural outsourcing bring unhappiness, and the increase in income cannot offset the negative psychological effect of outsourcing. The findings of this study may bring inspiration to other countries with agricultural outsourcing markets and programs to improve the national subjective well-being.

Against the backdrop of industrialization, urbanization, and the increasingly urgent issue of climate change, the latest round of collective forest tenure reform in China demonstrates the characteristics of institutional change and capital-biased technological progress. Using provincial panel data from 1994 to 2015, which is related to the main task of the reform, this study combined the Social–Ecological System (SES) framework to explore the impact of the latest round of collective forest tenure reform on forest carbon sequestration capacity. The study found that (1) the collective forest tenure reform enhances forest carbon sequestration capacity, especially in areas with abundant collective forests and clear property rights. Regional differences in per capita forestry income do not affect the reform’s impact on this capacity; (2) the forest tenure reform affects carbon sequestration capacity by improving capital productivity, but labor productivity has no significant effect; (3) under the macro background, the interaction between forest tenure reform-supporting measures and factor productivity have a sustainable impact on carbon sequestration capacity. Therefore, deepening the collective forest tenure reform is an important measure for continuously improving the carbon sequestration capacity of collective forests.

China’s major grain-producing areas (MGPA) policy is the core policy to ensure national food security. While achieving long-term stable growth of grain production, assessing the impact of MGPA policy on agrochemical application has important practical significance in sustainable agricultural development and environmental protection. Based on panel data of 31 provinces in China from 1997 to 2020 and taking the MGPA policy introduced in 2004 as a quasi-natural experiment, we construct a difference-in-difference (DID) model to evaluate the overall impact and dynamic effect of MGPA policy. It is found that the MGPA policy do not exacerbate chemical overuse as a whole, but significantly reduce the fertilizer use by 11% and the pesticide use by 6%. Using the event study to decompose the policy effect year by year, we find that the MGPA policy significantly increased the fertilizer and pesticide use in a short period of time. Its influence on the application amount of two chemicals began to turn negative until the fourth and sixth years of the policy implementation and became more and more obvious. We conclude the intermediate paths of MGPA policy to change planting structure, deepen agricultural division of labor, and reduce the use of agrochemicals, which were verified by the intermediary effect model. From the perspective of provincial differences, MGPA policy reduced chemical use more in provinces with large output contribution and northern provinces. In addition, the MGPA policy has reduced the amount of fertilizer application in major rice-growing provinces, but not the amount of pesticide application. Our research can provide implications for other developing countries and emerging economies where agricultural production is highly dependent on chemicals and has green agricultural transition plans.

The secret to ensuring food security and the growth of agricultural development is farmland production efficiency. In the context of urbanization, this means that farmers need to increase their off-farm employment behavior. The research goal of this paper is to explore whether this will have a impact on farmland production. This paper is based on the data of the China Land Economic Survey conducted by Nanjing Agricultural University and uses Tobit and other methods to conduct empirical tests. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) When the proportion of the household’s off-farm employment time is less than 73%, an increase in off-farm employment reduces farmland production efficiency. When the proportion of the household’s off-farm employment time exceeds 73%, an increase in off-farm employment increases the farmland production efficiency. (2) This paper eliminates the scale efficiency contribution in farmland production efficiency to obtain pure technical production efficiency. After verification, off-farm employment and farmland pure technical production efficiency show a U-shaped correlation and the inflection points of the two U-shaped curves coincide. (3) The reason for the inflection point is that after the off-farm employment of farmers reaches the inflection point, with a further increase in off-farm employment, the renting-out behavior of farmland increases and there is increased input of labor-saving technology in agricultural land production, because of which the production efficiency and pure technical efficiency of the farmland increase. To sum up, off-farm employment does not necessarily mean reduced farmland production efficiency. Farmland leasing behavior plays a key role in mitigating the impact of off-farm employment on farmland production. Therefore, in the process of urbanization, the improvement of the land transfer market, the development of agricultural socialized services, and the promotion of cooperative operation will help to ensure the productivity of farmland.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in farmland rent prices between land transferors and different transferees when considering the quality supervision cost of the transferred farmland. Moreover, the impact of the intervention of township governments, village committees, and other intermediary organizations on the rent price differences is also taken into consideration. The treatment effect model (TEM) and grouping regression model were used. The results showed that: (1) Owing to the different transaction costs, when leasing to village transferees, the land rent was significantly lower than when leasing to non-village transferees. (2) With the intervention of intermediary organizations, such as township governments and village committees, the constraints of the reputation mechanism between acquaintances were weakened, and the cost of information identification when land transferors searched for out-of-town transferees was reduced. As a result, the differences in land rent when transferring to the village and non-village transferees were narrowed. This study presents a different view to explain the transaction characteristics of the rural land transfer market in China. Further, it is of paramount importance to implement an effective public intervention, including strengthening the intermediary role of township governments and village committees, which is conducive to improving the rural land transfer market of most developing countries, including China.