Does multi-goal policy affect agricultural land efficiency? A quasi-natural experiment based on the natural resource conservation and intensification pilot scheme

With decision-making objects gradually expanding from a single sector to all sectors, it is necessary to clarify the differential impact of the multi-goal land use policy (MGLUP) on subsector land. We defined and measured the agricultural land efficiency in China, and then analyzed the policy effects of the natural resource conservation and intensification pilot scheme on land efficiency based on a quasi-natural experiment. The results showed that (1) agricultural land efficiency presents a spatial replacement process of high-value units and low-value units, and some urban areas with values below 0.8 still have significant room for improvement. (2) The MGLUP reduced agricultural land efficiency by 1% under causal inference analysis. (3) The robustness test results showed that the MGLUP reduced the physical and monetized outputs by 4–15%.