Abstract: Taking advantage of massive survey data in modern China, this article investigates the quantitative effect of quality innovation of variety on agricultural productivity improvement, with cotton industry as an example.Based on a series of quantitative analyses,this article not only calculates the quality difference with different cotton varieties, but also measures the real scale and the average annual growth of cotton quality innovation in 1920s and 1930s China. Adopting the county-level panel data from 1934 to 1937, this article robustly estimates the positive effect of cotton quality innovation on the agricultural productivity. With these empirical studies above, this article finds that the introduction and dissemination of American seed cotton was a representative event of quality innovation in modern China's cotton industry. As an important part of agriculture, these historical data demonstrate both quality innovation and productivity improvement in modern China’s cotton industry, revealing the characteristic of quality growth. It perhaps means that the modern times was the possible historical starting point of implicit agricultural revolution in China, and it is also possible that China's maroeconomy experienced a modest but real growth in precommunist era.
Key Words: Quality Innovation of Variety; Agricultural Productivity; American Seed Cotton