草原生态保护补助奖励政策对牧户非农就业生计的影响

Impact of grassland ecological compensation policy on household's off-farm livelihoods

草原生态保护补助奖励政策是中国保障生态安全和牧民生计的重大举措,但现有研究主要关注其对恢复草地生态的影响,对牧户的适应策略和生计影响的研究较少。本文以内蒙古的呼伦贝尔市、锡林郭勒盟、乌兰察布市和包头市为例,探讨草原生态保护补助奖励政策对牧户非农就业的影响。基于2008—2015年的牧户调研数据和计量经济模型的实证分析,得出如下主要结论:①虽然补奖政策对多数牧户的非农就业和收入起促进的作用,但没有显著改变牧户以畜牧生产为主的生计方式;②补奖政策与牧户非农就业和收入呈现倒U型的关系,补贴达到一定程度后会产生收入增长而导致休闲需求增长的效应。这些发现不但揭示了草原生态保护补奖政策对牧民生计的影响,而且具有重要的政策含义。

Grassland ecological compensation policy（GECP） is a major ecological conservation program implemented to ensure ecological security and herdsman＇s livelihoods in pastoral regions in China. The existing literature has focused on the impacts of overall grassland ecological compensation policy on restoring grassland ecological functions, but the key to achieving policy goals depends on whether herdsmen can obtain other producing activities after the implementation of the policy, especially in non-agricultural sectors. Current research on this aspect is scant and much of it is qualitative discussion only. Based on estimation of the fixed effects of Probit and Tobit modeling, we explored how the subsidy award policy affects the off-farm strategy of households, off-farm labor force and off-farm income. Using household survey data collected 2008 to 2015 in Inner Mongolia we aimed to reveal the influence of grassland ecological compensation policy on off-farm livelihoods. We found that although grassland ecological compensation policy has facilitated employment and income from off-farm employment for most households, it did not change livelihoods that were highly reliant on grazing animals. The grassland ecological compensation policy and off-farm employment of herdsman have an inverted u-shaped relationship,suggesting that high compensation may lead to a higher demand for leisure. Findings of this study reveal the impacts of current grassland ecological compensation policy on off-farm livelihoods and have important policy implications for perfecting existing policy mechanisms.