Market signals vs. policy incentives: an empirical analysis of rapeseed acreage decisions under uncertainty

Global oilseed markets have become increasingly volatile due to climate, geopolitical, and trade disruptions, intensifying uncertainty in China's rapeseed supply chain. Using micro-level survey data from 863 rapeseed-producing households (2022-2023, National Rapeseed Industry Technology System), this study examines how market price expectations and agricultural subsidies jointly shape farmers' rapeseed acreage decisions. An ordered Probit model serves as the baseline, complemented by a Multivalued Treatment Effect (MTE) model and a Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) estimator to address selection and endogeneity. Expectations are proxied by the gap between the minimum acceptable price and the realized selling price, and robustness checks use alternative expectation proxies, subsidy-type disaggregation, continuous acreage changes, and regional subsamples. Results show that optimistic expectations significantly increase the likelihood of acreage expansion, while higher subsidy intensity weakens this marginal incentive; the negative interaction remains in alternative specifications. These findings imply that support policies should balance income stabilization with market responsiveness, and that improved price information and risk-management tools can strengthen farmers' adaptive capacity under uncertainty.