台灣蘋果進口政策之偏好分析

The Preference Analysis on Apple Import Policy of Taiwan

為維護國內生產者收益，我國在加入WTO 以前對於水果市場大部份非採積極開放讓外國水果進口的態度，惟蘋果則早在1979 年即開始逐步開放，且進口量持續成長，至2004 年台灣蘋果的進口量為國內產量之18倍，進口值亦居水果之第一位。顯示政策對蘋果有相對高之進口偏好，而較忽略生產者。本文將以蘋果為實證標的，藉以建立階段性相對政策權數的推估模型，並瞭解其經濟義涵。欲瞭解政策偏好所產生的經濟效果，本文結合Goldberg 與Maggi(1999) 應用 Grossman 與Helpman (1994) 發展之銷售保護模型以進口滲透率為貿易保護之政治經濟決策變數的概念，及Maggi 與Rodriguez-Clare(2000) 設定之標準短期政治經濟模型，同時考慮消費者、生產者、進口商及政府本身收益之政策目標，建立一般化之農產品進口政策偏好最適化模型。以進口滲透率為政府制定政策之依變數，國內價格、國際價格、關稅為自變數之進口滲透率行為式，來瞭解政府對生產者剩餘、消費者剩餘、進口配額租及進口稅收之權數關係，並建立實證模型分析政府在制定蘋果進口政策時呈現之相對政策權數的經濟義涵。本文使用1983 年至2004 年的蘋果進口資料推估進口滲透率行為式，搭配水果需求體系所推估之參數，估計出蘋果之生產者剩餘、進口配額租及進口稅收相對政策權數為-16.91、-0.32 及0.70。進而衡量出政府在蘋果產業上的確較重視消費者剩餘，而較輕視其它三者，且逐年開放蘋果進口，確實對果農影響極大。並獲得此一相對政策權數之分析模式，可適用於評估特定政策的偏好行為。

In order to protect fruit farmers, the fruit market of Taiwan was notopened to foreign countries, except apple, before joining in the WTO.Apple market in Taiwan has been opened since 1979 and the quantity ofimported apples has been increasing since then. The imported amount ofapples was 18 times of the domestic grown apples in 2004. The value ofthe imported apples was the highest among other foreign fruits. Questionhas been raised if the implication of bigger quantity of the importedapples should indicate that the government neglects the apple growers?This paper tries to find the economic effects of apple import policythrough empirical analysis.To investigate the effects of economic preference on the importpolicy empirical, we combine Grossman-Helpman’s “protection for sale”model, namely, the political economy of trade protection explained by theimport penetration ratio, with Maggi and Rodrigues-Clare’s “standardshort-run political economy” model, regarding to the government’sobjective is taken to be a weighted sum of consumers’ surplus,producers’ surplus, quota rents to importers and revenue from tradepolicy. We set up a generalized government utility maximization model ofagricultural import policy. The dependent variable derived from the modelis the import penetration ratio. The explanatory variables are domesticprice, international price and tariff duties. This paper also has developed an empirical model of Taiwan’s appleimport policy to find the economic effects. By examining the series dataof Taiwan apple from 1983 to 2004, we calculated the policy relativeweight by the estimation of the empirical import penetration function andthe demand system of fruit.The results are as follows: the relative weights of the producers’surplus, rents to importers and revenue from trade policy are -16.91,-0.32 and 0.70. We find that the government paid more attention to theconsumer of apples than the growers or government revenues. Theeffects to the domestic apple growers are obvious due to thegovernment’s import policy, opens up the market to foreign countriesgradually. The model of policy relative weight can be used to theevaluation of the government’s policy preference.