The creation and spread of technology and total factor productivity in China's agriculture

The overall goal of this study is to create a framework for assessing the trends of China's national and international investment in agricultural research and to measure its impact on total factor productivity. The main methodological contribution is to provide more convincing measures of crop-specific technologies from China's national research program and of those imported from the international agricultural research system. Our results find that from 1980 to 1995, China's total factor productivity for rice, wheat, and maize grew rapidly and new technology accounts for most of the productivity growth.