The agricultural synergistic dividend of environmental regulation and the identification of the net total effect: Evidence from China’s Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan

This study evaluates the agricultural co-benefits of large-scale environmental regulation. Existing studies often focus on crop yields and condition on production inputs that may themselves respond to policy interventions, potentially understating the overall production effect. Using Chinese county-level panel data from 2000 to 2024, we employ a reduced-form difference-in-differences (DiD) design to estimate the net total effect of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (hereafter, the Action Plan) on per-capita agricultural output, with double machine learning used as a robustness check for flexible meteorological adjustment. The baseline DiD estimates indicate that the policy increased per-capita output of grain, vegetables and edible fungi, and oilseeds by approximately 42.6%, 10.4%, and 18.1%, respectively, in key regulated regions. Mechanism analysis shows that the policy significantly reduced fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations, consistent with the proposed biophysical pathway linking improved air quality to agricultural production. The reduced-form design may also retain production adjustments induced by environmental improvement, although these behavioral responses are not directly identified. Heterogeneity analysis indicates stronger grain responses in northern regions, whereas vegetables, edible fungi, and oilseeds show stronger responses in the South; grain and oilseed responses are also stronger in high-population areas. These findings provide evidence of agricultural co-benefits from air-pollution regulation and support closer coordination between environmental and agricultural policies.