Investigating the efficiency of rural industrial integration development in China: based on the undesirable super-efficiency SBM-Malmquist model

Promoting rural industrial integration development (RIID) to boost farmers’ income is a core strategy for rural revitalization and common prosperity. A reasonable and objective evaluation of RIID efficiency that jointly accounts for farmers’ income growth and the food-security and environmental constraints entailed by integration is critical for advancing sustainable rural development. This paper applies the super-efficiency SBM model with undesirable outputs and the Malmquist index to measure China’s RIID efficiency across 30 provinces from 2012 to 2023, analyzing its spatio-temporal evolution. The results show that the national annual average RIID efficiency fluctuated between 0.423 and 0.663, exhibiting a three-stage trajectory of “steady rise—fluctuating bottoming-out—accelerated climb” alongside a descriptively observed east–central–west gradient (eastern leading, central following, western lagging) that does not attain statistical significance. The annual average Malmquist index reached 1.060, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 6.0%, and efficiency catch-up became the dominant driver of productivity growth in the later stage. The exploratory regression further reveals that rural human capital and transportation infrastructure are significantly and positively associated with RIID efficiency. This study integrates farmers’ income growth, farmland non-grain conversion, and agricultural non-point source pollution into the efficiency evaluation system of rural industrial integration development. It also provides new empirical evidence regarding the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and driving factors of rural industrial integration, which can support the formulation of differentiated and welfare-oriented rural development policies in China and other developing economies.