Journal article icon

Journal article

Community Development and Poverty Alleviation: An Evaluation of China’s Poor Village Investment Program.

Abstract:
We conduct the first systematic evaluation of the world's largest community-based development program—China's flagship poverty alleviation program began in 2001 which finances public investments in designated poor villages based on participatory village planning. We use matching methods and a panel household and village data set with national coverage to compare changes from 2001 to 2004 in designated poor villages that began plan investments and in designated poor villages that had yet to begin plan investments. We find that the program significantly increased both government- and village-financed investments. While the program did not increase the income or consumption of poorer households, it did increase the income and consumption of richer households by 6.1 to 9.2%. We also find suggestive evidence that governance matters in the distribution of program benefits. Relative gains were greater for richer households in villages with more educated leaders, and higher quality village committees delivered greater benefits to both richer and poorer households.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions


Access Document


Files:
Publisher copy:
10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.06.005

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Elsevier
Journal:
Journal of Public Economics More from this journal
Volume:
94
Issue:
9-10
Pages:
790 - 799
Publication date:
2010-01-01
DOI:
ISSN:
0047-2727


Language:
English
UUID:
uuid:3064eacf-3e98-49af-a95d-8c9933dfe0ee
Local pid:
oai:economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk:15031
Deposit date:
2011-08-16

Terms of use



Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP