Mechanism and Empirical Test of the Impact of Consumption Upgrading on Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in China

To explore the relationship between consumption upgrading and agricultural green total factor productivity in the context of green and high-quality development of agriculture in China. Based on the construction of a composite index of consumption upgrading and the Malmquist index of non-expected output in the SBM-DEA model to measure agricultural green total factor productivity, this paper uses the PVAR model and panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2020 to empirically analyze the mechanism of the effect of consumption upgrading on agricultural green total factor productivity under high-quality development. The results are as follows: (1) Both the real economy and consumption upgrading are ahead of the change in agricultural green total factor productivity and have a negative short-run impact on agricultural green total factor productivity but a continuous boosting effect in the long-run. (2) In terms of specific impact paths, the real economy boosts agricultural green total factor productivity through technical efficiency and technical change paths and has a negative impact through scale efficiency, whereas consumption upgrading has inhibitory and sustained promotional effects in the short- and long-run, respectively, through technical efficiency and technical change paths and has opposite impact effects in the scale efficiency path.