The Impacts Of Tariff Adjustment Of Agricultural Products On Household Consumption Inequality:Theory And Evidence

Since the early part of 2020,the COVID-19 epidemic that has spread to the whole world has greatly impacted the economies of various countries.The global political economy was turbulent,and the epidemic situation of the century and the change of the century are intertwined.Facing the profound changes of the external environment,building a domestic and international double cycle is a new measure to cope with the international impact and seek domestic development in an unstable world.In the domestic macro cycle,stimulating domestic demand is a crucial part.Therefore,at the beginning of the second century goal,it is of far-reaching significance to study how to stabilize domestic consumption and reduce domestic consumption inequality.In the existing theoretical analysis framework,it is assumed that the agricultural sector is a homogeneous product sector.Based on the general equilibrium model with nonhomothetic preferences,the thesis assumes that agricultural product manufacturers and industrial product manufacturers are heterogeneous enterprises,so as to explore the influence of agricultural product trade policy adjustment and deeply analyze the role of agricultural product tariffs in domestic agricultural product price transmission.The theoretical results show that the decline of agricultural tariffs in importing countries will make the prices of agricultural products in domestic markets decline.And the welfare level of low-income people will increase to a greater extent through the difference in the share of agricultural products expenditure,then reducing the consumption inequality of domestic residents.In the empirical aspect,the thesis uses the data of Chinese city household survey(UHS)and the data of import tariffs of agricultural products collated by the World Trade Organization’s Integrated Database(WTO-IDB)and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Trade Analysis Information System(UNCTAD-TRAINS)to construct a panel covering 56 cities,with the time span of 1992-2009.Firstly,the cost of living index of household consumption is constructed based on Paasche price index and Sato-Vartia price index respectively,and then the inequality index of household consumption is calculated by the cost of living index.Secondly,taking China’s accession to the WTO in2001 as the time division point,56 cities were divided into treatment group and control group according to the degree of import tariff reduction of urban agricultural products,and the impact of agricultural import tariff reduction on domestic household consumption inequality was verified by difference-in-difference method.Secondly,it explores the difference of the influence of agricultural tariff policy adjustment on the consumption inequality of residents in different regions by region.At the same time,the fixed household expenditure share explores the impact of import tariff reduction of agricultural products on household consumption inequality through the change of domestic product market price.Finally,the consumption inequality is divided into agricultural consumption inequality and industrial consumption inequality,and the influence of agricultural product import tariff adjustment on agricultural and industrial consumption inequality is explored respectively.The results of this thesis show that: Firstly,after China’s accession to WTO in 2001,the drastic reduction of import tariffs on agricultural products is negatively related to the inequality of urban household consumption,that is,after the adjustment of agricultural tariffs in 2001,the inequality of household consumption is reduced.Secondly,the changes of import tariffs on agricultural products have different impacts on southern and northern cities,coastal and inland cities.Specifically,the impact on household consumption inequality in southern cities is greater than that in northern cities,and the impact on household consumption inequality in coastal cities is greater than that in inland cities.Specifically,the impact on household consumption inequality in southern cities is greater than that in northern cities,and the impact on household consumption inequality in coastal cities is greater than that in inland cities.Fourthly,the higher the import tariff of agricultural products,the greater the impact on household consumption inequality through the impact on domestic product market prices.Finally,the decomposition results of consumption inequality show that the consumption inequality of urban residents at the level of agricultural products and industrial products has decreased after the reduction of import tariffs on agricultural products,and the consumption inequality at the level of industry has decreased to a greater extent.