| Summary: | Abstract The chemical fertilizer industry has made great contributions to China's food security. Existing studies mainly focus on evaluating fertilizer use efficiency at the farm level whereas little is known about the technical efficiency of Chinese firms producing fertilizer. Based on the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database (CIED) and the Generalized True Random Effects model (GTRE), this paper estimates and decomposes the technical efficiency of Chinese fertilizer‐producing firms. Results show technical efficiency increased from 0.883 in 1998 to 0.930 in 2007, with an average of 0.898. The growth rate of persistent efficiency is lower than that of transient efficiency, implying structural problems exist in the Chinese fertilizer industry. Moreover, ownership type and firms' entry and exit are exogenous determinants of technical inefficiency. State‐owned firms perform much worse on technical efficiency. The entry of efficient firms and exit of inefficient firms, especially the exit of inefficient state‐owned firms, have improved the technical efficiency significantly.
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