Administrative Empowerment and Agricultural Crowding-Out: The Effect of County-To-City Upgrading on Grain Production in China

How administrative-division adjustments influence agricultural production constitutes a vital issue to unpack the linkage between county-level urbanization and food security across China. This paper treats China's new round of county-to-city upgrading (CCU policy) as a quasi-natural experiment and uses county-level panel data from 2000 to 2022 to examine its effect on total grain production through a staggered difference-in-differences approach. The results show that CCU policy significantly increases county-level total grain output. This finding indicates that administrative upgrading does not simply crowd out agricultural production; instead, it may promote grain production through administrative empowerment. Mechanism analysis shows that CCU policy works mainly through three channels: improving agricultural production conditions, optimizing county-level factor allocation, and promoting the transformation of agricultural operations. Further analysis shows that the production-enhancing effect of CCU policy is accompanied by an increase in fertilizer input in the long run, suggesting that grain output growth may exhibit input-intensification characteristics and generate pressure on green agricultural production. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of CCU policy on total grain output is more pronounced in counties with higher terrain ruggedness, in non-major grain-producing areas, and in counties with stronger economic foundations. From the perspective of administrative empowerment, this study extends the literature on the agricultural consequences of county-level urbanization and provides empirical evidence for coordinating administrative division adjustment, grain production capacity, and green agricultural transformation.