Machinery investment decision and off-farm employment in rural China☆

Article history: Received 28 February 2011 Received in revised form 13 July 2011 Accepted 8 August 2011 Available online 19 September 2011 This paper investigates the endogenous linkages between farmers' machinery investment decision and off-farm employment in China. Both the theoretical model and the empirical results based on a survey of 453 households in Anhui Province indicate that agricultural labor input and small-sized machinery investment are gross complements rather than substitutes when machinery services are available in the market. Consequently, farmers with small-sized machinery are more likely to reduce their off-farm employment time. On the other hand, an increase in off-farm employment is more likely to reduce the possibility of possessing smallsized machineries mainly due to substitution effects of market machinery services. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification: Q12