台灣稻米進口政策之偏好分析

The Preference Analysis on Rice Import Policy of Taiwan

稻米是我國在農業經濟及政策上最受重視的產業，為因應WTO各會員國要求市場開放之壓力，政府所擬定之逐步開放稻米進口的措施，是否意謂著政府長期以來首重保護稻農的立場有所改變？本文即針對政府開放稻米市場進口的政策，檢驗政府對稻米相對政策權數的變化。本研究參考Maggi與Rodriguez-Clare設定之標準短期政治經濟模型，結合Goldberg與Maggi銷售保護模型進口滲透率的概念，建立一般化農產品進口政策偏好最適化模型。除一般政策權數考量的生產者剩餘與消費者剩餘外，尚針對進口配額租及進口稅收權數進行衡量。並分析生產者收益、進口配額租及貿易收益等相對於消費者政策權數之涵義。依據產業特性，本文以稻米開始減產之1978-2004年為樣本期間，實證推估稻米生產者剩餘相對政策權數在開放進口前為0.40，開放後降為0.38；進口配額租權數在開放進口前為0.43，開放後降為0.33；而進口稅收權數在開放進口後為0.23。綜合其經濟意涵為政府在開放進口後對稻米產業生產者之重視程度下降，且注重搭配進口管理制度以取代獲得更多之進口配額租或進口稅收。並證實逐年開放稻米進口，確實將對國產稻米生產者的經濟面影響極大。而相對政策權數之推估方法可應用於評估政策偏好。

In order to protect rice farmers, the rice market of Taiwan was not opened to foreign countries before joining in the WTO in 2002 and the quantity of imported rice has been increasing since then. Question has been raised if the implication of more quantity of the imported rice should indicate that the government neglects the rice growers? This paper tries to find the economic effects of rice import policy through empirical analysis. To investigate the effects of economic preference on the import policy empirical, we combine Grossman-Helpman's ''protection for sale'' model, namely, the political economy of trade protection explained by the import penetration ratio, with Maggi and Rodrigues-Clare's ''standard short-run political economy'' model, regarding to the government's objective is taken to be a weighted sum of consumers' surplus, producers' surplus, quota rents to importers and revenue from trade policy. We set up a generalized government utility maximization model of agricultural import policy. This paper also has developed an empirical model of Taiwan's rice import policy to find the economic effects. By examining the series data of Taiwan rice from 1978 to 2004, we calculated the policy relative weight by the estimation of the empirical import penetration function and the demand of rice. The results are as follows: the relative weights of the producers' surplus, rents to importers and revenue from trade policy are 0.38, 0.43 and 0.23 from 1978 to 2004. We find that the government paid more attention to the producer of rice than the consumers in the past years, but it decreases in these years after joining in WTO. The effects to the domestic rice growers are obvious due to the government's import policy, opens up the market to foreign countries gradually. The policy relative weight had been verified to apply to the policy valuation.