پویایی فقر در عملکرد تولید و جنگلداری در بهبود معیشت: بررسی غرب آنهویی، چین

Using distance function model and data envelopment analysis, we measure the productivity of rural households in Jinzhai, a well-known poverty county. We find that most of them improved their productivity in the 1980s, and a small number did so throughout the period of 1978–1997. For the group as a whole, however, its productivity growth and income increase were abysmal, because, among other things, expenditures increased at faster pace than revenues. This is well reflected in forestry, whose potential in reducing poverty and improving livelihoods has been constrained by government market control. Also, the wide distribution of household performance suggests that many failed to move closer to the production frontier, let alone to push it out to a higher level. Further, the adoption of the household responsibility system contributed to technical change, which played an important role in driving the productivity growth in the early 1980s, but the uncertainty associated with the contract expiration/renewal in the early 1990s led to negative technical change and thus productivity decline. Removing the institutional and technical impediments is thus essential to reduce poverty.

In 1978, China abandoned collective agriculture and assigned most agricultural land to families under the household responsibility system. It also sharply increased the prices paid for agricultural goods. Over the next 15 years farm output grew more than 6% a year (Lin, 1992). This dramatic increase in agricultural productivity precipitated the country's long-running economic boom and poverty reduction. More than 200 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 25 years (Liu et al., 2000). However, China has also had significant increases in inequality and disparity—between coastal and inland areas, with the poor, isolated, and often upland areas of its interior participating little in growth (World Bank, 2001). As such, there remain at least 30 million people in poverty (Yao, 2000). Why have these people not been able to participate in and thus reap the benefits generated by the economic growth? How will they improve their livelihoods in the future? What part can forests play in reducing poverty? The goal of this paper is to address these overarching questions by measuring and analyzing the productivity growth of rural households with survey data obtained from a nationally well-known poverty county in West Anhui, Jinzhai, covering the period of 1978–1997.

Using the distance function model and DEA technique, we measured the productivity growth of 93 rural households in Jinzhai during 1978–1997. We found that a small number of them had great performance throughout, and most of them improved their productivity tremendously from 1980 to 1990. Comparatively, TC played a greater role than TE in driving TFP growth. Moreover, we found that the substantial gains in TC in the 1980s and the marked contractions in the 1990s were correlated with the status of the institutional structure. The adoption of the HRS in the early 1980s contributed to TC and thus productivity growth, especially during 1980–1985; the uncertainty associated with the contract expiration/renewal in the early 1990s led to negative TC and thus productivity decline. Also, provided that TC played a larger role than TE in TFP growth, it becomes necessary to measure not only TE but also TC to discover the real driving forces to TFP growth and poverty alleviation. It would be less meaningful if a study just focuses on TE, with no attention given to TC.