Research On The Impact Of Tariff Concessions On Residents’ Health Care Spending

In recent years,China has made many efforts to expand trade liberalization,such as joining the RECP,actively developing the "Belt and Road" construction,and now China has been an important supporter of economic globalization,which has a positive impact on global trade,and also still in the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposed that China should build a domestic and international double cycle,and further reduce import tariffs.With the decrease of import tariff level,China’s national economy has developed rapidly and the quality of living has improved significantly.In 1992,China started the process of trade liberalization,and in order to join the World Trade Organization,tariffs were substantially reduced between 1992 and 1997,with the average import tariff dropping from 42.9% to about 17%.After formally joined the WTO,China started another round of tariff reductions,and by 2005,the average import tariff rate in China stabilized at 10% or less.The tariff rates in China have generally declined before and after WTO accession,so this paper will use this event before and after China’s WTO accession to explore the impact of import tariff reductions on health care expenditures of urban and rural residents in China based on the main years of import tariff reductions,i.e.,1993-2006.The research in this paper is useful for understanding the broader impact of import tariff concessions on China,and has positive practical implications in understanding changes in the national health situation and improving the health of the population.Using a fixed effects model,this paper examines the impact of import tariff concessions on China’s residential health care expenditures by selecting individual micro panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS)from 1993 to 2006 and import tariff data from the WITS-TRAINS database.The empirical findings show that import tariff concessions improve the health status of China’s residents and reduce their health care expenditures.Based on theoretical analysis and empirical tests,we believe that tariff reductions improve residents’ health by increasing their household income,increasing employment and improving their healthy living habits,which in turn reduces their health care expenditures.At the same time,there is heterogeneity of import tariff reductions on residents’ health care expenditures.We find that tariff reduction have stronger effects on health care expenditures of the higher educated,rural household residents and females.Finally,based on the findings,this paper makes several recommendations as follows: trade liberalization should be further expanded,tariff levels should be lowered,imports of imported health-related products should be expanded,and the health economy should be actively developed;trade policies should be tailored to local conditions.In terms of cultivating health awareness among residents,we should improve the level of education of residents and enrich the channels for them to learn about health.