Although NHI is designed to ensure equality for accessing health care, the implementation of NHI has also improved the subjective well-being of the elderly, with a larger improvement for the elderly women. The post-NHI disparity reductions in life satisfaction between the previously uninsured and insured are significantly greater among elderly women. Our analysis of Taiwan's experience should provide a valuable lesson to countries that are in the initial stages of proposing a universal health insurance program.
Recent research has highlighted the importance of agricultural cooperatives on farm production. Although the consensus from the literature suggests that participating in these organizations significantly affects farm production, there is inconclusive evidence on whether this effect is positive or negative. Moreover, previous studies solely focus on the magnitude of this effect and fail to explain the mechanism behind it. This study contributes to this knowledge gap by estimating the impact of agricultural cooperatives on farm profits. To do this, we apply the causal mediation analysis to explain the potential mechanism behind this relationship. Using a nationally representative survey of farm households from Taiwan in 2013, we find that participating in cooperatives increases farm profits. Furthermore, this effect is more pronounced for producers with higher profits. Concerning the mechanism, we find that the use of food labels accounts for approximately 15 to 28% of the total effect of cooperative participation on farm profits.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of disaster relief payments on on-farm and off-farm labor supply of farm households in Taiwan. The effectiveness of the policy amendments of the disaster relief assistance programs is also examined.
Design/methodology/approach
A unique sample of 124,827 persons living in the family farm household in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 was used. This sample was merged into the township-level administrative profile of all of the recipients of agricultural disaster relief payments from the Natural Disaster Program in Taiwan. A fixed effect panel data model was estimated to analyze the impacts of disaster relief payments on each individual’s labor supply decision.
Findings
Natural disaster payments significantly reduced individual’s propensity to work on the farm. Moreover, the higher of the payments, the higher(lower) possibility of the individual to engage in on-farm(off-farm) work. In addition, an increase in the amount of disaster payments can increase the on-farm labor supply of family farm members.
Research limitations/implications
Due to data unavailability, an individual-level panel data set is not used. Future studies can check the robustness of the finding using an individual-level panel data set.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the limited empirical evidence on agricultural relief programs.
Given the increasing threat of climate change to agriculture, determining how to achieve farm sustainability is important for researchers and policy makers. Among others, protected cultivation has been proposed as a possible adaptive solution at the farm level. This study contributes to this research topic by quantifying the effects of the use of protected cultivation facilities on farm sustainability. In contrast to previous studies that relied on small-scale random surveys, a population-based sample of fruit, flower and vegetable farms was drawn from the Agricultural Census Survey in Taiwan. Propensity score matching, inverse probability weighting and inverse probability weighting regression adjustment methods were applied. Empirical results show that the use of protected cultivation facilities increases farm profit by 68–73%, other things being equal. This finding is persistent when farms suffer from disaster shocks. Moreover, the changes in farm labor use can be seen as a mechanism behind the positive effect of the protected cultivation facility use on farm profit. Our findings suggest that agricultural authority can consider subsidizing farms to increase the adoption of protected cultivation facilities to mitigate the risks resulting from natural disaster shocks.
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