农场规模、劳动力投入量与技术效率及其相关性问题研究

The relevance of farm scale,labor inputs and technical efficiency

水稻是中国最重要的口粮作物,其生产变化直接关乎国家粮食安全。本文利用1984-2012年早籼稻、中籼稻、晚籼稻和粳稻4种水稻生产的省级面板数据,采用随机前沿生产函数方法,本文估计各种要素投入对水稻产出的贡献,并进一步分析机械使用和劳动力投入之间的替代关系、农场规模对水稻生产和技术效率的影响。研究结果表明:劳动力投入与机械使用投入呈现出显著的相互替代关系,随着农场规模的扩大,劳动力投入量相对降低,技术效率提高。在未来中国经济继续保持较快增长、城镇化进程加快的背景下,推进机械化和规模化经营对水稻增产具有极为重要的作用。

As the most important grain crop in China,rice production is vital to livelihoods and national food security. The level of agricultural mechanization is rising and at the same time the rural labor supply keeps decreasing. Within this context,the overall goal of this paper was to analyze the correlation between labor wages and rice mechanization. We set up datasets based on provincial panel data of early indica rice,medium indica rice,late indica rice and japonica rice from 1984 to 2012. Using the stochastic frontier production function,we estimated the contribution of different factors to rice production. We then analyzed the substitutional relationship between the use of machinery and labor. We found a negative correlation between the use of machinery and labor in rice production. The use of machinery and labor is significant to rice production. The output elasticity of labor is more than fifty percent for all the four kinds of rice. When the input of machinery increases by 1%,the output will be increased by 0.23% to 0.33%. With farm size expansion,the labor force input reduces relatively and technical efficiency improves. Thus,mechanized production will play a core role in China＇s rice production in the future. Policy implications have been provided at the end of this paper. Under the background of increasing China＇s economy and urbanization,we recommend the continued promotion of mechanization production.