The Outlandish Farm Subsidies--Posner

古怪的农业补贴

原文地址：http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/05/the_outlandish.html

作者：Posner

翻译：fenglf


The President has expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed Farm Bill wending its way through Congress. He wants farmers whose annual incomes exceed $200,000 to be denied subsidies; the present cutoff is $2.6 million and Congress will not go below $950,000. The President's concern with farm subsidies cannot be taken very seriously, since in 2002 the Republican Congress with Administration connivance greatly increased these subsidies and at the same time repealed some of the modest reforms that the Clinton Administration had introduced in 1996. The Administration's current proposals would, if enacted, be a step in the right direction, but they will not be enacted, and, judging from the 2002 legislation, they are intended I suspect merely to embarrass the Democratic Congress.
布什总体早就表达了对正在国会审议的农业法议案的不满。他希望取消对年收入超过20万美元的农场主的补贴；现在的补贴线是年收入在260万美元以下，国会将来也不会让补贴线低于95万美元。不过别把总统对农业补贴方面的关心太当会事儿，因为在2002年，共和党控制的国会和政府曾大幅度提升了补贴额度，并且同时取消了克林顿政府在1996年引入的一些有益的改革措施。布什政府现在的建议如果被立法的话那将是在正确道路上迈出了一步，但是那是不可能被国会通过的。通过2002年的相关立法看，我怀疑他们仅仅是故意地去给现在在民主党控制下的国会的制造麻烦。


The deregulation movement passed agriculture by, leaving in place a series of government programs that lack any economic justification and at the same time are regressive. They should offend liberals on the latter score and conservatives on the former; their firm entrenchment in American public policy illustrates the limitations of the American democratic system. A million farmers receive subsidies in a variety of forms (direct crop subsidies, R&D, crop insurance, federal loans, ethanol tariffs, export subsidies, emergency relief, the food-stamp program, and more), which will cost in the aggregate, under the pending Farm Bill, some $50 billion a year, or $50,000 per farmer on average. Farm subsidies account for about a sixth of total farm revenues. So, not surprisingly, the income of the average farmer is actually above the average of all American incomes, and anyway 74 percent of the subsidies go to the 10 percent largest farm enterprises. The subsidies are regressive, especially during a recession coinciding with worldwide food shortages (i.e., high prices).
取消管制浪潮也涉及到农业，但留下的是的一系列违背经济规律、退步的相关政策措施。这很要么会惹恼自由派要么会惹恼保守派。美国公共政策这种顽固的隔阂显示美国民主制度的局限性。一百万农民通过各种形式接受补贴（直接农产品补贴、研发补贴、农产品保险、联邦贷款、乙醇关税、出口补贴、紧急救助、食品券等等），以正在审议的农业法议案来计算的话，每年这总共将花费500亿美元，或者相当于平均每个农场主5万美元。农业补贴大概相当于农业总收入的六分之一。因此，不必对于美国农场主的平均收入高于全美平均收入感到吃惊。并且，大概百分之七十四的补贴集在百分之十的大农业企业手中。农业补贴是一种倒退，特别是在目前这种伴随着世界性粮食短缺(比如表现为价格更高了)的经济衰退时期。


There is no justification for the Farm Bill in terms of social welfare. The agriculture industry does not exhibit the symptoms, such as large fixed costs, that make unregulated competition problematic in some industries, such as the airline industry, about which Becker and I blogged recently. It is true that crops are vulnerable to disease, drought, floods, and other natural disasters, but the global insurance industry insures against such disasters, and in addition large agricultural enterprises can reduce the risk of such disasters by diversifying crops and by owning farm land in different parts of the nation and the world. If a farm enterprise grows soybeans in different regions, a soybean blight in one region, by reducing the supply of soybeans, will increase the price of soybeans, so the enterprise will be hedged, at least partially, against the risk of disaster. Supply fluctuations due to natural disaster create instability in farm prices, but farmers can hedge against such instability by purchasing future or forward contracts. There is no "market failure" problem that would justify regulating the farm industry. All the subsidies should be repealed.

从社会福利的角度看农业法议案并无什么有益之处。看不出农业有什么特殊之处以至于在无管制的市场竞争中会出问题，比如像航空业巨大的固定成本就较为特殊，贝克尔和我最近都发了相关的博文。的确，农作物极易遭受到病变、干旱、洪灾及其它自然灾害。但是全球的保险业使相关风险能够得到抵御，并且大型农业企业可以通过农作物多元化以及农地在全国及全球的分散化来抵御相关风险。一个农业企业在不同的地区种植大豆，如果其中一个地区大豆枯萎死亡，并因此最终减少了大豆的供给，但是大豆价格也会同时提高。因此企业是可以对冲掉相关风险的，最起码也可以部分的抵御灾害带来的风险。自然灾害引致的农产品供给的波动最终会导致农产品价格的波动，但是农场主可以通过购买期货合约和远期合约来对冲掉风险。这里没有什么“市场失灵”的问题能成为管制农业的说辞。所有补贴都应被废止。


This of course will not happen, and that is a lesson in the limitations of democracy, at least as practiced in the United States at this time, though I doubt that it is peculiarities of American democracy that explain the farm programs, for their European counterparts are far more generous. The small number of American farmers is, paradoxically, a factor that facilitates their obtaining transfer payments from taxpayers. They are so few that they can organize effectively, and being few the average benefit they derive (the $50,000 a year) creates a strong incentive to contribute time and money to securing the subsidies. The free-rider problem that plagues collective action is minimized when the benefit to the individual member of the collective group is great. Then too many of the members of the farm community and hence recipients of the subsidies are wealthy, and the wealthy have great influence in Congress as a result of the lack of effective limitations on private financing of congressional campaigns and on lobbying generally. In addition, the allocation of two senators to each state regardless of population enhances the political power of sparsely populated states, which tend to be disproportionately agricultural. The key role of Iowa in the presidential electoral process is a further barrier to the abolition of farm subsidies, and the final factor is the alliance of urban with farm interests in support of the food-stamp program, itself inferior to a negative income tax, which would give the poor money but allow them to make their own consumption choices.
当然，这是不可能发生的，从中我们也可以看出民主制度的局限性，至少从美国目前的实际情况看是如此。我觉得美国民主的这一特征也可以解释为何欧洲的农业措施对其农民更加慷慨。促进农民获得税收转移支付的一个原因居然是因为美国农民数量太小，这是很荒谬的。他们数量少因此能很有效的组织起来，丰厚的收益(平均每人5万美元每年)使他们有很大的动力去花时间和金钱以获得补贴。当一个群体中的每个成员的获益都能很大的时候，搭便车行为就很少了。许多农民接受补贴并变得很有财富，并且由于在国会竞选和游说组织的私人筹款方面缺乏有效的限制，使得他们的财富对国会有很大的影响。另外，无论人口多少每个州都只能有两名参议员的规定会增强人口较少的州的政治权利，而这些州的农业生产占了绝大的比例。爱荷华州(农业大州-译注)在美国总统选举中的角色也是废止农业补贴的一个障碍。最后一个因素是那些支持食品券工程的城乡联盟，其实食品券还不如负所得税，负所得税给穷人钱但可以让他们自己做出消费选择。


A puzzle about the farm programs is the heavy emphasis on money subsidies, since by reducing the cost of farming they encourage greater output, which results in lower prices for farm products, thus offsetting some, perhaps much, of the effect of the subsidies. (The lower prices are not a social benefit, because as the result of subsidization they are below cost.) Acreage restrictions, which used to be the core of federal farm policy, and which correspond to the type of entry-limiting regulations imposed on airlines, railroads, trucking, pipelines, long-distance telecommunications, banking, and the wholesale sale of electricity, before the deregulation movement, are more efficient at raising farmers’ incomes by reducing output, in effect cartelizing agriculture. Those restrictions have been reduced, but between them and export subsidies (which reduce the supply of agricultural products to American consumers) farm prices in America are higher than they would be without the farm programs, and this contributes to the regressive effects of the programs.

关于农业的一个难题是特别重视现金补贴，由于减少了农民的成本，鼓励了他们扩大产量，这就使农产品的价格变得更低，这就抵消了一些或者是很大一部补贴带来的影响。（这低价并不是一种社会福利，因为它是来自于补贴。）如同以往在航空、铁路、货运、(输油)管道、长途通讯、银行业、电力批发等行业的准入限制一样，耕作面积限制曾作为联邦农业政策的核心，通过减少产量在提高农民收入方面效果显著，事实上就是农业垄断。这些限制后来慢慢减少了，但正是这些包括出口补贴(出口补贴使对美国国内消费者的农产品供给减少了)在内的政策使得农产品价格变得更高了。这些倒退的政策。

【贝克尔-波斯纳博客】贝克尔：农业补贴与农业税
Farm Subsidies and Farm Taxes-Becker

农业补贴与农业税

原文地址：http://www.becker-posner-blog.co ... farm_subsidies.html

作者：加里·贝克尔

翻译：fenglf

Posner presents evidence on the sizable subsidies received by American farmers from the federal government of the United States. However, the US is not unique, for every rich country including France, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan, heavily subsidizes their farmers, no matter how small the agricultural sectors. In fact, some of these other countries subsidize farmers more generously than even the United States. On the surface, this universal tendency for rich countries to subsidize farming, no matter how different are the details of their political systems, is a paradox. For since only a small fraction of the populations of these countries work in agriculture, farmers cannot contribute much to any majority voting coalition.
波斯纳证明了美国农场主从联邦政府获得的补贴数额巨大。但是，美国并不是唯一如此的国家，几乎每个富裕国家包括法国、德国、英国以及日本都给予了本国农民相当大的补贴，无论其农业规模如何。事实上，有些国家对其农民的补贴比美国还要多。表面上看，富裕国家无论其政治制度如何都普遍对农业补贴的趋势貌似是一个悖论，因为如果一个国家从事农业的人口特别少的话，那么在政治上，这国农民在任何“多数投票联盟”中都没有优势。


Add to this paradox that pretty much every developing country, no matter whether they have democratic or totalitarian political systems, rather heavily tax farmers in order to subsidize their urban populations. Taxing of farmers is as true of India as of China, Mexico as well as Argentina, Egypt as well as South Africa, and similarly for the other poorer nations. In all these countries, farmers are a significant fraction of their populations, and they form a majority in many, such as India and China.
悖论还表现在：几乎所有的发展中国家，无论其是民主还是极权的政治体制，都对农民课以重税以补贴城市居民。在印度、中国、墨西哥、阿根廷、埃及、南非以及其它更贫穷的国家，对农民征税都是事实。在这些国家里，农民数量都占人口总量很大的份额，并且形成了“多数派”，例如在印度和中国。


This different treatment of farmers in rich and poorer nations is dramatically seen in the causes of and the responses to the recent worldwide explosion of food prices. American and European subsides to biofuels are an important factor behind the rise in food prices, for these subsidies directly raised the price of corn to consumers, and indirectly raised the prices of other grains (see our recent discussion on April 13 and 17 of the rise in food prices). Riots broke out in many cities around the world in protest against the increases in the prices of bread and other food stables. To quell these riots and other urban unrest, many countries restricted their exports of agricultural goods in order to lower the prices and increase the supply of these goods to their urban citizens. The effect of these export restrictions was to lower the incomes of the farmers in these countries since they were prevented from selling some of their produce on the world market where prices are higher.
无论是从近期全球食品价格上涨的原因还是从应对食品价格上涨的方式上看，富裕国家和贫穷国家的农民的不同境遇都很有戏剧性。欧美对生物燃料的补贴是食品价格上涨的一个重要原因，这些补贴直接提高玉米的价格，同时也间接提高了其它谷物的价格。抗议面包和其它食品价格上涨的暴乱在全球许多国家爆发，为了平息暴乱和其它城市骚动，许多国家开始限制农产品出口，以便能降低价格并增加对本国城市居民的食品供给。限制出口的结果是降低了农民的收入，因为他们本可将其产品在其它国家卖得更高的价格。


This response to rising food prices by the governments of poorer nations is not explained by any concern about fighting poverty in these nations. The fact is that farmers in developing countries are much poorer on average than are their city residents, which explains the continuing migration from the rural areas to cities in these countries. So by putting restrictions on the exports of farm goods, developing countries are not only making their economies less efficient, but also they are adding to the overall incidence of poverty among their populations. The gap between the incomes of rural and urban families is much smaller in developed countries that subsidize rather than tax farmers. Indeed, with the high prices for cereals and other foods during the past couple of years, average farm incomes are often above those of city residents.
贫穷国家政府对食品价格上升的应对方法，完全无法看出其中有任何对摆脱贫困的关心。事实是，发展中国家的农民平均上比其城镇居民要贫穷很多，这也解释这些国家农民持续的从农村向城市迁移的现象。发展中国家对农产品出口的限制不但造成了经济低效，而且也增加了贫困人口的比率。发达国家选择补贴农民而不是向农民征税，农村和城市家庭的收入差距是非常小的。确切的说，由于这两年谷物和其它食品价格高涨，农民的平均收入实际上已经超过了城市民居。


I believe that the explanation for the very opposite treatment of farmers in developing and developed countries is interest group competition (see my "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence", The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Aug., 1983), pp. 371-400. This analysis shows that small groups, like farmers in rich countries, often have much greater political clout than large groups, like farmers in poorer countries. The reason is that even large per capita subsidies to small groups, such as farmers in the US, impose rather little cost (i.e., taxes) on each member of the large groups, like urban and suburban residents of the US. As a result, these large groups do not fight very hard politically against the small per capita taxes used to subsidize farmers.
我相信“利益集团竞争”理论能解释发展中国家和发达国家的农民的相反境遇（参看我的论文《一个关于压力集团在对政治影响力方面竞争的理论》，发表在1983年8月号《经济学季刊》第371至400页）。其分析表明小群体(如富裕国家的农民群体)常常能获得比大群体(如贫穷国家的农民群体)更大的政治权利。原因是即使对小群体的每个人以高额补助(如果美国的农民)，大群体每个成员(如果美国城市和城郊的居民)分摊的成本(例如税收)也非常小。因此，这些大群体(利益集团)并不会在政治上过分努力的去反对用于农业补助的平均来数额很小的税收。


By contrast, a large subsidy to farmers in developing countries would require imposing high per capita taxes on their relatively small urban populations since farmers are a rather large proportion of the total population in these countries. Instead, the same political pressures as in developed countries lead poorer countries, regardless of the nature of their political systems, to subsidize the smaller urban populations at the expense of the larger farm populations.
相比之下，在发展中国家要对农民大额补助就要求其相对少数的城市人口分摊较高的税收了，因为在这些国家农民的数量占了总人数的绝大比例。与发达国家相同的政治压力，在贫穷国家里(不管是什么政治体制)便变成了大量农村人口对小量城市人口进行补贴了。


Hence a common approach to the political process based on interest group pressures can explain both the taxing of poor farmers in developing nations, and the subsidies to well off farmers in richer nations.
因此，基于利益集团压力的政治现象的同一理论，既能解释发展中国国家对贫穷农民征税的现象，也能解释发达国家对富裕农民补贴的现象。