The goal of this article is to answer two questions: Has world agricultural convergence occurred? If not, how can this goal be fulfilled? This article introduces a model averaging method to consider both a parametric and a semi-parametric SFA model to better estimate technical efficiency. Then, three types of convergence tests are employed to check if world agricultural catch-up occurs and to determine the degree of convergence across different groups of countries. The empirical results on a balanced panel of 126 countries from 1970–2014 show that world agricultural convergence has not occurred. This article then investigates the situations in different groups of countries and discusses how to use international trade, irrigation system, and structural transformation to improve agricultural efficiency and to diminish the efficiency gap among different countries in the future.
This article investigates the impact of previous epidemics on rural development and convergence, and identifies the impact's mechanism based on convergence tests. Using a balanced panel of 31 provinces, the empirical results from 2002 to 2019 show that epidemics decelerated convergence in rural per capita income. The mechanism analysis shows that the accelerated divergence in wages and the decelerated convergence in business income were the major drivers, which also led to decelerated convergence in rural per capita consumption. Although epidemics have not threatened rural food consumption and the Engel coefficient of rural households, these two indicators of basic living needs have failed to achieve convergence across regions. The overall impact of an epidemic on convergence in rural–urban income disparity has also been insignificant, indicating that epidemics have affected rural and urban development simultaneously. Finally, COVID‐19 is likely to decelerate convergence in rural income, rural consumption, and urban income.
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