Internet Development,agricultural Total Factor Productivity And Agricultural Economic Growth

Agriculture is the foundation of national economy.Developing agricultural economy vigorously is the key to build a beautiful and harmonious new countryside and improve farmers’ living standards.In the 21 st century,with the accelerated promotion of digital countryside,"Internet + agriculture" and other strategies,agricultural production has gained increasingly rich information dividends.As a new production factor,the Internet has gradually penetrated into every link of agricultural production and played an important role in promoting agricultural economic growth.In the process of realizing agricultural modernization,compared with the short-term growth of agricultural economy,we pay more attention to the sustainable growth of agriculture.The sustainable growth of agriculture depends on the continuous improvement of agricultural total factor productivity(TFP).Improving the TFP of Chinese agriculture is the key to promote the development of high quality of Chinese agriculture.Therefore,in the context of the rapid development of rural Internet,in order to achieve sustainable growth of agricultural economy,this paper systematically discusses how the development of Internet has an impact on agricultural economic growth through agricultural TFP.Firstly,based on economic growth theory and total factor productivity theory,this paper combs and analyzes the theoretical mechanism of Internet development on agricultural economic growth.At the same time,agricultural TFP is included to clarify the mediating role of agricultural TFP in the impact of Internet development on agricultural economic growth.Secondly,a fixed-effect model is constructed to explore the impact of Internet development on agricultural economic growth,and the instrumental variable method is used to discuss the endogenous problem.And the heterogeneity test is conducted from three dimensions: regional division,human capital level and urbanization level.Lastly,based on the panel data of 31 provinces(municipalities,autonomous regions)from 2009 to 2020,the DEA-Malmquist index method is used to measure the change level of agricultural TFP in China.And the mediating effect of agricultural TFP in the promotion of agricultural economic growth by Internet development is tested.In addition,agricultural TFP is decomposed into agricultural technical progress and agricultural technical efficiency to further test the mediating effect.Through the above research,the paper draws the following research conclusion:Firstly,the Internet development promotes the agricultural economic growth of our country significantly.In the test of regional heterogeneity,the effect of Internet development on agricultural economic growth in northeast China is the best.In the stage heterogeneity test,Internet development has the greatest impact on agricultural economic growth in the stage of high human capital and high urbanization.Secondly,from 2009 to 2020,the average annual growth rate of agricultural TFP is 9.6%,showing a trend of fluctuating growth.Technical progress and improvement of technical efficiency jointly promotes the growth of agricultural TFP.Thirdly,in the process of Internet development affecting agricultural economic growth in China,agricultural TFP plays a significant mediating effect.And the mediating effect is still valid when agricultural TFP is decomposed into technical progress and technical efficiency.Among them,the mediating effect of technical progress is 52.89%,and the mediating effect of technical efficiency is 22.63%.The results shows that Internet development can indirectly affect the growth of agricultural economy through agricultural TFP.It shows the conduction path of "Internet development-agricultural TFP-agricultural economic growth".Based on the above research conclusions,the following suggestions are put forward: strengthen the construction of agricultural information technology and increase the Internet penetration rate in rural areas;promote the deep integration of the Internet and agriculture,and give full play to the bridging role of agricultural TFP.