Environmental improvement value of agricultural carbon reduction and its spatiotemporal dynamic evolution: Evidence from China

Highlights: • The environmental improvement value demonstrates central > western > eastern. • The environmental improvement value fluctuated increasing by 20% in 21 years. • It shows "high-low agglomeration" and difficult to achieve a giant-leap development. • The influencing factors exist spatial-temporal heterogeneity. A large increase in carbon emission and other greenhouse gases have attracted much attention around the world for decades. As the second largest carbon emission source in the world, the agricultural carbon emission and the environmental improvement value of agricultural carbon reduction (EIVACR) should not be ignored. Based on the theory of resource economic value, the current study divided 31 provincial-level administrative units of China into three major regions. The Super-Efficiency Slacks-Based Measurement (SBM) model, Moran's I index and Markov chain transfer probability matrix method have been employed to examine EIVACR and it's spatial-temporal dynamic evolution characteristics by adopting panel data of 31 provinces from 1997 to 2017. The result indicated that: (i) during the study period, China's average EIVACR showed significant regional differences, accompanied by the gradually strengthening spatial pattern of the "central > western > eastern"; (ii) the average EIVACR increased from 0.970 Million Yuan in 1997 to 1.164 Million Yuan in 2017, increasing by 20% in 21 years; (iii) no spatial correlation or obvious dependence exist between adjacent provinces, but present a negative impact of "high-low" agglomeration in individual years; (iv) the influencing effects of technology adoption and factor allocation have spatial heterogeneity, and the influencing effect of policy orientation has temporal heterogeneity. Therefore, differentiated carbon reduction policies should be formulated according to regional and temporal differences. Meanwhile, carbon reduction market trading mechanism and compensation policy should be established. What's more, regional cooperation needs to be strengthened, to form a synergistic carbon reduction effect.