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Abstract
A Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) approach is adapted to empirically
estimate crop-specific production technologies in Chinese agriculture. Despite a modest
behavior assumption about equal marginal returns of non-land inputs among crops, this
method does not require price information, which is usually distorted in a centrally
planned economy such as China. Multi-output technologies for seven regions over more
than two decades are estimated, and input allocations for each province are recovered
simultaneously. The estimated multi-output production technology and input allocations
imply that China may have greater grain production potentials than previously thought.