CHINA REGIONAL GRAIN SELF-SUFFICIENCY POLICY AND ITS EFFECT ON LAND PRODUCTIVITY

In attempting to explain the dramatic decline and stagnation of agricu ltural productivity observed in the collective period and the rapid gr owth after the reforms, two hypotheses have been advanced. One attribu tes the changes in productivity to the changes in incentive mechanisms under different institutions. The second hypothesis attributes the ch anges to the policy of regional self-sufficiency in grain. Using provi ncial data and a counterfactual method based on 1952 as a benchmark, w e find that the introduction of the regional grain self-sufficiency po licy resulted in land productivity gains rather than losses. The impli cation of this empirical finding disconfirms the second hypothesis. (C ) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.