农产品贸易开放减少贫困了吗——基于微观农户数据的实证研究

Can Trade Liberalization of Agricultural Products Reduce Poverty in China——Evidence Based on Micro Household Data

基于微观农户数据,本文测算出我国31个省份1996—2011年的FGT贫困指数。结合构建的农产品贸易开放指标,运用面板双固定效应模型检验了农产品贸易开放对贫困的影响,发现农产品出口显著缓解了农村地区的贫困,农产品进口对贫困减少有负面影响。分地区结果显示:农产品进口降低了南部及沿海省份农户的贫困深度和强度,但对其他省份农户仍具有不利影响。进一步检验表明:出口对农产品生产和出售会带来显著正向影响,进口则会带来不利影响。同时,农产品出口对农户贫困形成、出售收入和生产量的影响都要大于进口,总体上农产品贸易开放带来的正向作用更大。此外,农产品贸易开放会改变农户的种植结构,提高具有出口比较优势农产品的生产。相对其他省份,农产品贸易开放对南部及沿海省份更为有利。

Based on national micro household data,this paper first constructed the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke(FGT)index for 31 provinces in China.And then we examined the impact of agricultural trade liberalization on poverty reduction using the fixed effect model.Our main findings are:Agricultural exports have significant impact on the alleviation of the poverty problem in rural areas,while agricultural imports have a negative impact on poverty reduction overall.However,the sub-sample analysis indicates that,for the southern and coastal provinces,agricultural imports have positive impact in the reduction of poverty depth and intensity,while it has an adverse impact for the remaining provinces.In addition,the agricultural exports always have a significant positive impact on the total output and sales revenue of agricultural products,while imports have a negative overall impact.Generally speaking,the effects of agricultural exports on the poverty,output and sale of farmers tend to be greater than that of imports.Thus,agricultural trade liberalization is overall positive on the agricultural sector(holding existing trade risk and friction level constant).In addition,agricultural trade liberalization changes farmers’planting structure and improves the production of agricultural products with comparative advantage.The DID analysis indicates that agricultural trade liberalization is more beneficial to the southern and coastal provinces as compared to other regions.