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Are There Lasting Impacts Of Aid To Poor Areas? Evidence From Rural China, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen, Ren Mu
Are There Lasting Impacts Of Aid To Poor Areas? Evidence From Rural China, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen, Ren Mu
Martin Ravallion
The paper re-visits the site of a large, World Bank-financed, rural development program in China, 10 years after it began and four years after disbursements ended. The program emphasized community participation in multi-sectoral interventions (including farming, animal husbandry, infrastructure and social services). Data were collected on 2,000 households in project and non-project areas, spanning 10 years. A double-difference estimator of the program’s impact (on top of pre-existing governmental programs) reveals sizeable short-term income gains that were mostly saved. Only small and statistically insignificant gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer-term — though in rough accord with the gain to …
China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen
China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen
Martin Ravallion
While the incidence of extreme poverty fell dramatically in China over 1980-2001, progress was uneven over time and across provinces. Rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor, though migration to urban areas helped. Rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth; agriculture played a far more important role than the secondary or tertiary sources of GDP. Taxation of farmers and inflation hurt the poor; local government spending helped them in absolute terms; external trade had little short-term impact. Provinces starting with relatively high inequality saw slower progress against …