Estimating crop-specific production technologies in Chinese agriculture: Ageneralized maximum entropy approach

A generalized maximum entropy approach is adapted to empirically estimate c rop-specific production technologies in Chinese agriculture. Despite a mode st behavioral assumption about equal marginal returns of nonland inputs amo ng crops, this method does not require price information, which is usually distorted in a centrally planned economy such as China. A multi-output tech nology for Chinese agriculture is estimated and input allocations for each province are recovered simultaneously. The estimated multi-output productio n technology and input allocations imply that China may have greater grain production potentials than previously thought.