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Agriculture, Chinese Development, and the Macroeconomy

Cao, Kang Hua. (2009). Agriculture, Chinese Development, and the Macroeconomy. Master's thesis / Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Cao, Kang Hua. (2009). Agriculture, Chinese Development, and the Macroeconomy. Master's thesis / Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.

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In my dissertation, I examine the role of agriculture and structural change in China's economic growth during the reform periods after 1978. I develop and calibrate a two-sector general equilibrium model that combines non-homothetic preferences and sectoral differences in productivity growth. Of these two economic forces, the former guarantees that the reallocation of labor from agriculture to the rest of the economy is a gradual process. The speed of such reallocation depends primarily on the differences in productivity growth. I also estimate the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth of agriculture in China using micro-level farm data. I show that the labor input of Chinese agriculture decreased at a rate of 2% annually from 1978 to 2003 and that the TFP growth of agriculture was 5.4% during that period. This confirms the common belief that the efficiency gain of the Chinese economy during the reform periods lies mainly in agriculture.




THES



Cao, Kang Hua


Birchenall, Javier

2009



3371633


105




University of California, Santa Barbara

Ann Arbor

9781109329414




1938