Developing countries, in their pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals, are intensifying their efforts to promote agricultural mechanization, with China at the forefront, through comprehensive policy revisions aimed at enhancing mechanization levels. This study employs multivalued treatment effect (MVTE) and quantile treatment effect (QTE) methodologies to assess the impact of agricultural mechanization on labor and land productivity while also examining the seffects across different farm sizes and moderating influences. Leveraging data from the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey, the findings indicate that semi-mechanized and full-mechanized farming, compared to no-mechanized farming, significantly boost labor and land productivity for both average and lower-to-mid-level productivity farmers. Disaggregated analysis by farm size shows that larger farms benefit significantly from semi-mechanized and full-mechanized farming in terms of increased labor and land productivity. However, the incremental benefits of varying levels of mechanization on productivity are observed only in labor productivity for farmers with mid- and upper-level productivity and for those in the largest farm size group. Additionally, land transfer status, government subsidies, and the intensity of clan culture are found to significantly influence the productivity effects of agricultural mechanization in China. Consequently, it is imperative to reorient agricultural policies towards enhancing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of mechanization, especially considering the constraints on labor and land availability and the need to minimize the environmental impact of agricultural production. In light of these discussions, this paper presents policy implications for sustainable agricultural mechanization.

The value of informatization lies not only in expanding urban digital infrastructure, but also in reshaping firm behavior through improvements in the information environment. Using China’s smart city pilot program as a quasi-natural experiment and a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms, this study examines whether urban-level informatization affects corporate ESG performance. The staggered difference-in-differences estimates show that smart city pilots significantly improve firms’ ESG performance, and the result remains robust after a range of endogeneity checks and robustness tests. Mechanism analyses provide evidence consistent with the proposed external monitoring and internal governance channels. Specifically, smart city pilots are associated with stronger monitoring by capital-market participants and improved internal governance conditions, in line with investor attention theory and organizational information processing theory. The effect is more pronounced for firms whose executives have environmental backgrounds, firms in heavily polluting industries, and firms located in regions with stronger environmental regulation. Further tests show that ESG improvements induced by informatization increase both short-term profitability and long-term market valuation. These findings reveal how urban informatization promotes corporate ESG performance and show that ESG improvements can help firms align social value with economic value.