공익직불제의 경지규모별 소득분배 형평성 개선 검증

Verification of the Improvement of Equity in Income Distribution by Cultivated Land Size with the Public Service Direct Payment

The purpose of this study is to test whether the implementation of the public service direct payments, which has become a key agricultural policy with the reorganization of the direct payments in 2020, has actually improved the equity of income distribution by farm size. Therefore, we estimate the relationship between agricultural public subsidies and farm size in 2018 and 2021 by analyzing a regression discontinuity design using raw data from the Farm Economic Survey. Considering that the basic public direct payments were set at three different reference points (0.5 ha, 2 ha, and 6 ha) with a regressive unit price of public direct payments, we divided the farm samples into three groups around these points, and found that the slope of the farm size to the agricultural public subsidies changed from the point to the original design in all samples. Specifically, the amount of received agricultural public subsidies by farm size in 2021 compared to 2018 increased significantly at all three points, influencing the fact that the unit price of public direct payments was set higher than that of previous direct payments. Moreover, in 2021, the slopes of the estimation changed modestly at both 2 ha and 6 ha, the thresholds at which the unit price of public direct payments. This is a clear indication that the implementation of public direct payments has contributed to improving equity in the distribution of income between small and large-scale farms, especially compared to 2018, when there was no change in the slope in all samples. Using the averages of transfer income and farm income by farm scale to compare before and after the implementation of the public direct payments, it can be inferred that it has also contributed to the improvement and stabilization of equity in transfer income and farm income. Since this study confirms that the public direct payments has been effective in improving equity in terms of income distribution by farm scale, if the budget for public direct payments is increased, it will be possible to improve the equity of income distribution among farmers by increasing the unit price of public direct payments while maintaining the current regressive unit price.