外部关税减让与家庭消费——来自中国城镇住户调查的微观证据

External Tariff Cut and Household Consumption:Micro Evidence from China Urban Household Survey

鉴于尚未有文献基于中国的微观数据探讨外部关税减让如何影响家庭消费这一极具现实意义的话题,基于1997—2009年城镇住户调查(UHS)微观数据,利用各行业外部关税税率差异以及各城市加入WTO前的产业结构差异,本文构建了城市层面的外部关税水平指标,并采用双重差分法识别了外部关税减让对家庭消费的影响。研究发现:①外部关税减让促进了家庭消费支出的增长和家庭人均消费支出的增长,降低了平均消费倾向,并促进了家庭消费结构升级。该结论在替换核心解释变量、预期效应检验、考虑其他因素的干扰、安慰剂检验、更换样本等条件下依旧稳健。②潜在的影响机制在于,外部关税减让通过影响家庭收入水平、收入不平等程度和物价水平三个路径,进而影响了家庭消费。③异质性检验结果显示,外部关税减让对家庭消费的影响在不同地区、不同房屋产权的家庭、不同就业部门的家庭和不同收入结构的家庭之间存在一定的差异。最后,依据本文结论提出了加快“正在谈判的自贸区”的相关进程并切实推进双边关税减让安排、推动“一带一路”倡议与自贸区战略更好结合的政策建议。

In view that there’s no relevant study focusing on the topic that how does external tariff cut affect household consumption based on micro-data from China,which is of great practical significance.Based on the micro-data of Urban Household Survey from 1997 to 2009,exploiting industry difference in external tariff and regional variation in industrial structure before the WTO accession,this paper constructs regional external tariff level indi-cator and employs difference in difference identification strategy to explore the impact of external tariff cut on household consumption.Our main finding is as follows:Firstly,external tariff cut promotes the growth of household consumption expenditure and per capita household consumption expenditure,and depresses average propensity to consume.Moreover,external tariff cut promotes the upgrading of household consumption structure.Furthermore,the coefficients of interest pass multiple robustness tests,including using alternative measures,examining expectation effect,considering other interfere factors,placebo test,replacing the research sample,etc.Secondly,the potential mechanism analysis finds that external tariff cut affects household consumption through the channels of household income level,income inequality,and commodity price level.Thirdly,the heterogeneity test indicates that the impacts of external tariff cut on household consumption are heterogeneous across different regions,households with different house ownerships,households with different employment sectors,and households with different income structures.Finally,based on our main finding,we bring forward corresponding policy suggestions,including speeding up the process of FTA under negotiation and effectively advanc-ing bilateral tariff concession arrangement,and better integrating the Belt and Road Initiative with FTA strategy.