Research of Total Factor Productivity and Agricultural Management Based on Malmquist-DEA Modeling

Abstract

Based on the Malmquist-DEA Modeling and drawing on the data from 12 cities in Hubei, a central province of China, this paper measures the total factor productivity (TFP) of agricultural management as well as technological change (TC) and technical efficiency change (EC). The Cobb–Douglas (C-D) production function is adopted to empirically estimate the impacts of TFP and its constituent elements on the agricultural management and economic growth comprehensively and further study the effects on different regions in Hubei. The results demonstrate that TC grows at an annual average rate of 6.7% and drives agricultural TFP growth in Hubei. The decline in scale efficiency accounts for the drop of 1.1% of EC. The agricultural TFP growth rates among different regions vary remarkably but overall have a positive and significant effect on agricultural output. The research sheds light on the analysis of agricultural development of Hubei according to the findings based on Malmquist-DEA Modeling and provides practical implications for the future management.