Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.9, 2017

 

Policy Design for the Integration of “Top Down” and “Bottom Up”: An Empirical Analysis Based on Poverty Alleviation Rural Development Projects

(Abstract)

 

Jia Junxue, Qin Cong and Liu Yongzheng

 

Since the mid-1980s, poverty alleviation polices have gradually shifted from simple “blood transfusions” to “blood-formation.” Each “blood-formation” mode of poverty alleviation has its own advantages and disadvantages. We have constructed a simple theoretical model to analyze the effect upon the incomes of rural households of two “blood-formation” poverty alleviation modes and the counterpart funding arrangements of capital subsidies and microcredit, together with the mechanisms by which these take effect, and have carried out an empirical PSM and DID test. As the results show, microcredit has a positive role in increasing the incomes of impoverished rural households, but capital subsidies have less effect. The introduction of counterpart funding mechanisms not only significantly boosts the per capita net incomes of impoverished rural households but clearly enhances the poverty alleviation effect of capital subsidies. Overall, by integrating “top down” and “bottom up” poverty alleviation mechanisms and boosting village-level democracy, poverty alleviation rural development projects have enhanced the targeting and effectiveness of poverty alleviation and offer promise for the optimization of precise poverty alleviation.