影響農牧戶所得之決定因素與政府補貼之政策效果

Evaluating Government Subsidies on Farm Incomes in Taiwan

本文探討政府補貼是否有效改善農牧戶所得，並比較補貼前後所得Gini係數的變化。為降低所得極端行為被低估之偏誤，利用利用行政院主計處家庭收支調查報告及Koenker & Bassett分量迴歸模分析影響農牧戶所得的決定因素。實證結果顯示，政府保險類補貼與非保險類補貼對提高所得的影響效果正負相反，負向的非保險類補貼抵銷部分保險類補貼的正效果。保險類補貼對所得中下之農牧戶有幫助，但非保險補貼無助於提高所得。果農所得水準最低，但與其他作物所得差距不多，顯示補貼已發揮效果，但政府應重新調整非保險類補貼政策，參考本文實證結果，改善目前缺失。 The purpose of the paper is to explore whether government subsidies can effectively improve the incomes of farmers and herders in Taiwan. The cross-section data are taken from the Report on the Survey of Family Income & Expenditure, published by Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, Taiwan. In order to reduce the underestimation of the behaviour of the highest and lowest income households, the paper uses the Koenker and Bassett quantile regression model to explore the determinants of the incomes of farmers and herders, and to analyze the effects of the government subsidy policy, which can be divided into insurance subsidies and non-insurance subsidies. The empirical results show that, the effects of insurance and non-insurance subsidies have contrasting effects on incomes, with the negative effects of non-insurance subsidies partly offsetting the positive effects of government insurance subsidies. The quantile regression results show that regardless of the income levels of households, non-insurance subsidies cannot effectively improve the incomes of farmers and herders. Although the average incomes of fruit farmers are the lowest, the differences in incomes of the other cultivated crops are very small. Overall, the government subsidy policy has had discernible and measurable impacts, with the incomes of farmers of different cultivated crops seemingly approaching a common level.