How does agricultural product quality and safety regulation drive agricultural economic growth: a quasi-natural experiment from China's agricultural product quality and safety county pilot policy.

The establishment of Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Counties not only enhances the quality and safety standards of agricultural products, effectively ensuring food safety and consumption security, but also holds significant implications for accelerating the transformation of agricultural development patterns and advancing modern agriculture. Based on panel data from 1,609 Chinese counties from 2010 to 2023, this study employs the national pilot policy for Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Counties as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizes a multi-period difference-in-differences approach to examine the impact of establishing these counties on agricultural economic growth and its underlying mechanisms. The findings reveal that: (1) the pilot policy significantly promotes county-level agricultural economic growth, a conclusion that remains robust after a series of robustness checks; (2) heterogeneity analysis indicates the policy's effects are more pronounced in central and eastern regions, major grain-producing areas, and regions with higher levels of economic development, digital infrastructure, and transportation facilities; (3) mechanism analysis demonstrates that the policy facilitates agricultural economic development by promoting expanded operational scale and the development of geographical indications. This study provides theoretical support and policy references for further expanding the Agricultural Product Quality and Safety County initiative and for government agencies to formulate development policies tailored to local conditions.