AJAE新文：农业规模与农业生产率的关系：来自中国北方玉米生产的证据【转】

The relationship between farm size and productivity has long been a topic of debate in development economics. Using farm-level panel data from 2003 to 2013, we investigate the relationship between maize yield and farm size in Northern China. After controlling for farm-specific characteristics, we restore a mild U-shaped relationship between maize yield and cropping area from the apparent inverse U-shaped curve. This suggests that an inverse farm size–productivity relationship persists for most small-sized farms. Further analyses demonstrate that farmer input choice between labor and capital is likely to smooth the non-linear farm size–productivity relationship, with capital use being more likely to affect the farm size–productivity relationship at a larger scale. The findings imply that subsidizing farmers to rent land without helping them become better-equipped could result in resource misallocation towards larger farms using less-efficient labor-intensive technologies.