Effects of agricultural mechanization on land productivity: Evidence from China

Abstract

This study estimates the impacts of the adoption of different mechanized farming strategies (i.e. no-mechanized farming, semi-mechanized farming, and full-mechanized farming) on land productivity. An innovative multivalued treatment effects model addresses selectivity bias and estimates farm household data from the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey. The results show that adopting semi- and full-mechanized farming positively impacts land productivity, and the larger impact is associated with the adoption of full-mechanized farming. The disaggregated analyses indicate that female-headed households obtain higher land productivity from mechanization adoption relative to their male-headed counterparts; the farm size–land productivity relationship is U-shaped for semi-mechanized farming adopters but negative for full-mechanized farming adopters; semi-mechanized farming adopters living in central China and full-mechanized farming adopters living in western China obtain higher land productivity than their counterparts in other parts of China.