Abstract: Existing studies have mostly emphasized the strengthening of rural policy and technology supply for the development of agricultural new quality productivity, but have paid less attention to the key forces of government performance appraisal systems and neglected to explore the root causes of the formation of the urban bias in policy. In this regard, the framework of "incentive direction shift-attention reallocation" is constructed by using the abolition of GDP assessment in counties as a quasi-natural experiment, and combining the county-level data from 2008 to 2022 and the Difference-in-Differences model to examine the relationship between the transformation of performance appraisal and the role of the agricultural new quality productivity. The results of the study show that the transformation of performance appraisal beyond GDP orientation significantly promotes the development of new quality productivity in county agriculture, and that boosting financial expenditure on agriculture and enhancing agricultural entrepreneurial activity are the key mechanisms at play. At the same time, shifting from targeted incentives for economic growth to targeted incentives for agricultural development can better promote the development of Agricultural New Quality Productivity. Further analyses show that the above effects are better in the northern regions, in non-food-producing counties and in regions with strong promotion incentives. In addition, the transformation of the performance appraisal has also helped to alleviate the development gap between counties and narrow the gap between urban and rural areas within counties, contributing to the co-ordinated development. The study embeds a dynamic incentive perspective for agriculture new quality productivity, providing theoretical wisdom and practical inspiration for related fields.

Key words: performance evaluation transformation, targeted incentives, agriculture new quality productivity, regional disparities