The Effect of Internet Information Dependence and Land Transfer on Agricultural Production Technical Efficiency of Households

Abstract

In this essay, the author studies the relationship between internet information dependence, land transfer, and agricultural production technical efficiency based on the CFPS database, including observations from households from 25 provinces in China. The stochastic frontier approach is adopted to predict the technical efficiency of each household, and then OLS, group regression, and regression under interaction terms are applied, respectively. As a result, leasing land from others and internet information dependence are proven to have a positive impact on technical efficiency, while only in the case that the house owner does not depend on the internet to acquire information, the effect of leasing land from others is significant. Though the interaction term between internet dependence and land transfer is not significantly negative, internet dependence does have a substitution effect on land transfer in terms of improving technical efficiency. The result sheds light on developing countries striving to increase agricultural production efficiency and thus presents possible suggestions for peasants to gain better economic status.