Spatial Analysis of Agriculture Ecological Efficiency and Its Influence on Fiscal Expenditures

Abstract

The faster development of the agriculture sector has led to the excessive waste of agriculture resources and that development causes serious damage to the ecological environment. So, ecological agriculture has become an important topic to understand the relationship between agriculture and the environment. This study tries to examine the impact of agricultural fiscal expenditures on agricultural ecological efficiency. In the first step, the researcher found the ecological efficiency of agriculture. The second step tries to examine the agricultural fiscal expenditure impact on agriculture’s ecological efficiency. The study used data from 30 provinces of China from 1998 to 2018. For the empirical results, the researcher used the super-efficiency DEA window analysis in the first step. Moreover, we used the spatial Durbin model in the second step. The results of the study revealed that China’s agricultural ecological efficiency shows a downward trend to an upward trend. The efficiency value of the eastern region is higher than the central region’s efficiency value, which is lower than the national average level. The western region’s efficiency value is equal to the national average level, and the differences between regions vary with the time period. The nuclear density of agricultural eco-efficiency in China showed a trend of “left-shift rising—double peaks—right-shifting decline”. In terms of space, China’s agricultural ecological efficiency has a significant positive spatial spillover effect, especially in the eastern and western regions. The results of the spatial Durbin model revealed that agricultural fiscal expenditures have a significant role in promoting China’s agricultural ecological efficiency. While agricultural governance has shown a significant spatial crowd-out effect. Therefore, it is proposed to promote the development of inter-provincial agricultural cooperation, and the formulation of agricultural financial support strategies should be green-oriented and should consider regional heterogeneity.