Technical Efficiency,Technical Change,and Factor Substitution of Chinese Maize Production——Based on Stochastic Frontier Production Approach

Based on the output-input panel data of 20 major maize producing provinces in China from 2003 to 2012,the method of stochastic frontier production function was applied to the study of the changes of technical efficiency,technical change and factor substitution. Results were as follows: First,Chinese maize production almost had no technological progress in the past ten years. Second,technical efficiency continued to improve despite the fluctuation,the sample provinces of the technical efficiency are improved in different degree. Thirdly,the main reasons of technical efficiency improvement are technological progress of disaster prevention and mitigation,irrigation improvement,land scale expansion,and management mechanism innovation. The effect of labor,machinery and fertilizer to per unit yield of maize are all positive; but the changing trends of output elasticity are different; output elasticity of labor and fertilizer has a trend of decreasing while that of machinery has a trend of increasing. The substitution elasticity of machinery to labor has an increasing trend,which has been more obvious since 2009. The substitution elasticity of seed to fertilizer is not ideal with frequent change.