Investment Efficiency–Risk Mismatch and Its Impact on Supply Chain Upgrading: Evidence from China’s Grain Industry

This study examines how investment efficiency and risk jointly shape grain supply-chain upgrading. Using firm-level panel data for 25 listed grain supply-chain firms in China from 2015 to 2023, this study examines efficiency–risk structures and their heterogeneity across upstream, midstream, and downstream segments. A three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to measure investment efficiency while controlling for environmental heterogeneity and statistical noise, and a multidimensional investment risk index is constructed using principal component analysis (PCA). The results reveal a clear supply-chain gradient: downstream firms exhibit consistently high investment efficiency with low risk, upstream firms remain characterized by low efficiency and higher risk exposure, and midstream firms display improving efficiency accompanied by pronounced risk volatility. Efficiency decomposition shows that upstream inefficiency is mainly driven by scale inefficiency rather than insufficient pure technical efficiency. Joint efficiency–risk mapping further indicates that efficiency–risk mismatch constitutes a key micro-level constraint on supply-chain upgrading, as high efficiency alone fails to sustain investment under elevated risk. These findings provide micro-level evidence on efficiency–risk alignment and offer policy-relevant insights for segment-specific interventions to improve scale efficiency, mitigate risk, and promote coordinated upgrading in grain supply chains.