Will land transfer affect agricultural carbon emission efficiency? An empirical study based on provinces in China

Studying the carbon emission efficiency of the agricultural sector plays an important role in achieving the goal of global carbon neutrality. As a common economic behavior in agricultural production, it is still unclear about that how land transfer affects agricultural carbon emission efficiency (ACEE). Therefore, according to panel data of 30 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities at the same level) from 2005 to 2019 in the Chinese mainland, this work adopts the panel Ordinary Least Square (OLS) to reveal the influential mechanism of land transfer on ACEE. Subsequently, the panel quantile regression and sub-sample regression are applied to divide the provinces into different types of regions, so as to explore what kind of heterogeneity effect would occur, if land transfer acts upon ACEE. Finally, this work discovers the influential mechanism of land transfer to ACEE by agricultural industrial agglomeration and agricultural land management scale. The research results support the view that the land transfer significantly inhibits the improvement of ACEE, and also prove that there is regional heterogeneity in the impact of land transfer on ACEE, and this heterogeneity is mainly reflected in the impact intensity of land transfer on ACEE in different regions. The more important and deeper discovery is that agricultural industrial agglomeration and agricultural land management scale intensify the inhibition of land transfer on ACEE. Considering that both agricultural industrial agglomeration and agricultural land management scale have a regulatory effect on the influence of the land transfer on ACEE, this work suggests that the government improve the land transfer market system, implement differentiated agricultural management measures, and reasonably promote agricultural industrial agglomeration to gradually realize economies of scale.