Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil in 2008
研究了2008年巴西食品价格上涨对家庭福利的影响，发现支出效应是累退的，但市场收入效应是累进的，整体影响呈U型，中收入群体损失比例最大，但全国贫困程度仍加深。
Abstract Food price inflation in Brazil in the 12 months to June 2008 was 18%, whereas overall inflation was 7%. Using spatially disaggregated monthly data on consumer prices and two different household surveys, we estimate the welfare consequences of these food price increases, and their distribution across households. Because Brazil is a large food producer, with a predominantly wage‐earning agricultural labour force, our estimates include general equilibrium effects on market and transfer incomes, as well as the standard estimates of changes in consumer surplus. Although the expenditure (or consumer surplus) effects were large, negative and markedly regressive everywhere, estimates of the market‐income effect were positive and progressive, particularly in rural areas. Because of this effect on the rural poor, and of the partial protection afforded by increases in two large social assistance benefits, the overall impact of higher food prices in Brazil was U‐shaped, with middle‐income groups suffering larger proportional losses than the very poor. Nevertheless, as Brazil is 80% urban, higher food prices still led to a greater incidence and depth of poverty at the national level.