台灣農家所得分配與貿易自由化

Trade Liberalization and Income Distribution of Farm Households in Taiwan

在1990年代初期，台灣隨著貿易逐漸自由化，農家所得分配也開始產生變化。因農家農業所得及兼業所得下降，使農家整體所得相對非農家所得大幅滑落，同時農家所得分配不均度相對於非農家亦大幅降低，主要因農家農業所得及兼業所得大幅下降所致。本文利用『台灣地區家庭收支調查』之資料，評估台灣在2002年正式加入WTO後，農家所得分配所受到的影響。而實證結果顯示，農家所得分配不均度相對於非農家在加入WTO後開始增加。不均度增加的原因來自於兩部分，一為相對高所得的農家與非農家在加入WTO後，其所得的差距有減少的趨勢；另一為在同時相對低所得的農家與非農家，其所得的差距卻呈現增加的趨勢所致。

As trade starts to liberalize in Taiwan during the early 1990s, the income distribution of farm households has changed dramatically. Both farm and nonfarm income of farm households decline, and the income inequality of farm households decreases relatively to nonfarm households. In this paper, we use data from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure to access the effect of further trade liberalization on the income distribution of farm households after Taiwan is admitted to World Trade Organization (WTO). Our empirical result shows that the income inequality of farm households relatively to nonfarm households increases after Taiwan joins the WTO. The reason is that the income of high-income farm households increases relatively to their counterpart in nonfarm households, while the income of low-income farm households decreases relatively to their counterpart in nonfarm households.