| The ancient problem of poverty is a complex social construction.It is the target of the rulers in every dynasty to save the poor from hunger and cold.In addition,getting rid of poverty and achieving the great Chinese dream are the common goals of Chinese people,the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government.The large-scale work of declining poverty in new China began from 1978,which has achieved remarkable result in the past 40 years.Despite this,there is still a long way to reduce the total number of poor people,decrease poverty levels and alleviate a concentration of poverty,testing the wisdom and determination of the Chinese government,as it is extremely severe for the situation during the 13 th Five-Year Plan period.With the in-depth study of poverty and the continuous updating of poverty metrics,poverty vulnerability(referred to vulnerability)has gradually entered the research horizons.As can be seen,apart from the fact that poverty is no longer a material poverty in a conventional sense,it is hazards and a sort of poverty vulnerability when facing risks.Whenever the mechanisms for reducing,mitigating and coping with dangers are used by the poor,their vulnerability could decrease.According to statistics,25.2% of the per capita disposable income of Chinese rural residents comes from the net income of the primary industry,while the figure in poor area even gets 30.1%.Therefore,reducing,mitigating and responding to agricultural risks in order to stabilize the rural residents’ income of the primary industry is one of a crucial ways to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.At present,poverty alleviation of China and development has entered the stage which conquers difficulties and consolidates achievements.Facing new backgrounds and challenges,it has apparent contradictions between limited capabilities of payment and high needs of risk protection,moreover,inclusive experiments and extremely preferential needs aimed at vulnerable groups,which reflect main conflicts in Chinese society in the new era.Thus,the need to satisfy the risk protection needs of poor and vulnerable farmers will become a realistic requirement for implementing strategies about precise poverty alleviation and establishing a long-term anti-poverty mechanism.In the series of contexts,as one of the most effective tools for alleviating poverty vulnerability in the insurance field,the research of policy-oriented agricultural insurance with policy,guarantee and fairness is of great significance.It is beneficial to studying the systematic and deep efficacy that policy-oriented agricultural insurance alleviates the vulnerability of poverty in academia.What’s more,it also helps to clarify its status in poverty alleviation to make it better to participate in poverty alleviation.Based on the vulnerability of poverty,we should not only pay attention to current poverty,but also the possible future poverty.This paper just starts from the poverty vulnerability influenced by agricultural risks,and studies the mechanism and efficacy that policyoriented agricultural insurance alleviates the vulnerability of poverty.This article consists of nine chapters.Chapter one is the total introduction.It is problem-oriented,analyzes its policy background,realistic background and theoretical background,and expounds the purpose and significance of this research.Thereafter,it sorts out and reviews the current situation of related issues at home and abroad,and defines the core concepts of research.Then,this chapter elaborates on the boundaries of the study,research ideas and framework,and explaining the methods used in the research according to characteristics of study.Finally,the innovations and shortcomings are proposed.Chapter two is the relevant theories and the mechanism of policy-oriented agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.policy-oriented agricultural insurance is one of the themes in this paper.The common existence of agricultural risks and poverty vulnerability led by it are limited factors to continue poverty alleviation,needing valid agricultural risk management.As a result,it is one of the foundations to study agricultural risks and the theory of agricultural risk management.In addition,this chapter makes a clear statement about external effect and quasi-public goods theory,policy-oriented agricultural insurance becomes a crucial part taking part in poverty alleviation in the light of both them.What’s more,another topic is poverty vulnerability,which is needed to demonstrate theory of poverty vulnerability from distinct aspects including concept evolution,relationship with poverty,generative mechanism,frame of identification and measurement methods.At the same time,the theory of utility and the theory of expected utility are also elaborated.This chapter elaborates on the Markov process,as the empirical research in this paper uses the idea of Markov process to cope with the model.Eventually,this chapter discusses the mechanism about how policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty on the basis of theoretical explanation.The research shows that based on the frame of Risk-Vulnerability,poverty alleviation is created due to both impacts of internal and external risks of vulnerable farmers under terrible shock of agricultural risks before what makes poverty alleviation continuously horrible and trap in a vicious cycle is that the risk exposure,sensitivity and adaptability of vulnerable farmers are gradually evolved.In the end,policy agricultural insurance is more effective as a kind of risk management tool compared with commercial agricultural insurance.effective risk management is needed to prevent and respond to vulnerabilities,while inadequate approaches of risk management may exacerbate vulnerability.Chapter three shows the institutional evolution of policy-based agricultural insurance and its practical inspiration for alleviating the vulnerability of poverty.This chapter clearly summarizes the evolution of China’s policy agricultural insurance system and its experience in institutional evolution.With the evolution of the policy-based agricultural insurance system,its functions have expanded from risk protection to disaster prevention,loss prevention and financing,and its action has gradually expanded to serve the “three rural issues” as well.Furthermore,this chapter analyzes the current situation of poverty vulnerability alleviated by policy agriculture insurance from various aspects.Firstly,under the influence of agricultural risks,China’s poverty vulnerability shows the characteristics of large scale,regional concentration and single source of income.What leads to the poverty vulnerability are the interweaving factors from the ecosystem level,economic level and humanistic level.To provide data in order to support analysis for later paper,this chapter also sorts out how China’s policy agricultural insurance alleviates the present state of poverty vulnerability in terms of supply and demand,rural residents’ income and consumption,and risk management.Taking India,Brazil and other countries as well as using agricultural insurance to poverty alleviation in Fuping County,Hebei Province and Gansu Province as classical cases,this chapter compares and analyzes them to draws inspiration which helps policy-based agricultural insurance to alleviate the effects of poverty vulnerability.Chapter four demonstrates the effectiveness and factors of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.This chapter mainly discusses the efficacy,influencing and restrictive elements of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.policy-oriented agricultural insurance has functions such as risk protection,providing credit guarantee,improving agricultural infrastructure and promoting the development of agricultural technology,which are beneficial to alleviate poverty.Supply side: on one hand,at the macro level,accurate poverty alleviation strategy,the legislation and regulations about agricultural insurance,and premiums and subsidies from agricultural insurance,etc.are put into effect,which are necessary supports to provide policy environment and mechanism for policy agricultural insurance to alleviate poverty vulnerability.On the other hand,at the micro level,the level and coverage of protection and technological innovation of policy agricultural insurance offer an operational mode to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.Demand side: the common existing agricultural catastrophic risks and agricultural disaster losses result in the farmers’ willingness towards demands of agricultural insurance.Moreover,the increasing income of agriculture makes farmers constantly be capable of purchasing agricultural insurance and thus effectively generate demand for policy agricultural insurance,which achieves the goal of alleviating the vulnerability of poverty at last.However,policy agricultural insurance still has constraints in alleviating poverty vulnerability:in the terms of government,the supporting measures are not clear,the level of protection is low,the subsidy items are single,the disaster compensation and reinsurance mechanism are lacking,etc.As for insurance institution,the level of grassroots service is insufficient.,regional risk doesn’t match with rate,insufficient supply of special insurance products,inadequate insurance education,etc.When it comes to poor farmers,risk perception and insurance awareness are of deficiency,insufficient effective requirements,etc.The reason why the effects that policy agricultural insurance alleviates poverty vulnerability cannot fully be exploited is the existence of constraints.Chapter five makes a statement about the utility,critical point and transmission mechanism of the fact that policy agricultural insurance mitigates poverty vulnerability.Starting from the behavior of farmers,this chapter discusses the marginal utility,income elasticity,income effect and substitution effect of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty and the expected utility under uncertain conditions.The research shows that if the income elasticity is negative,the commodity attributes of policy agricultural insurance will change,that is to say,the total effect of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty is negative for the farmers with lower income level,which is also the reason why policy agricultural insurance exists barriers to mitigate poverty vulnerability.In the expected utility,the insurance coverage under fair premium conditions has no effect on the income of farmers,while the utility under unsure conditions is lower than the utility under certain conditions in practice,that is,the net welfare brought by policy agricultural insurance will be greater and the effect of alleviating poverty vulnerability will be better.Depending on utility analysis,this paper argues that policy agricultural insurance has a critical point in alleviating poverty vulnerability,namely threshold effect.Above the critical point,policy agricultural insurance has direct and indirect transmission towards alleviation of poverty vulnerability.The direct transmission mechanism is:(1)After farmers participate in agricultural insurance,if losses happen,that the insurance company provides economic compensation will reduce income fluctuations and ease the vulnerability;(2)Policy agricultural insurance can smooth consumption,decline the uncertainty expectations of farmers,enhance farmers’ consumer confidence and maximize consumer surplus,and therefore achieve the mitigation of vulnerability.What’s more,Its indirect transmission mechanism is:(1)to promote economic growth through the path of “reducing agricultural investors’ risk expectations→increasing agricultural investment→rising agricultural industrialization→growing agricultural output rate →increasing agricultural income→agricultural economic growth”.Accompanied by agriculture economic growth,the trickle-down effect brings an increase of farmers’ income and another development of welfare conditions,alleviating the vulnerability of poverty;(2)the redistribution of wealth can be achieved through premium income,while the essence of premium subsidies is that governments transfer payments,which boosts fair distribution of income.Further,lessening the gap of income distribution is conducive to alleviating poverty vulnerability.However,it is vital to pay attention to the fact that it is virtually impossible to come true that carrying out income redistribution policy to promote the poverty alleviation for countries with larger initial income distribution gaps from the perspective of alleviating rural poverty.Chapter six demonstrates empirical analysis of policy agricultural Insurance towards alleviation of poverty vulnerability: theoretical models and numerical simulations.This chapter explores the effectiveness of policy agricultural insurance to mitigate vulnerability from an empirical perspective.On the basis of comparing the related models,this chapter combines MIU utility function,Bellman equation and Markov process to construct a theoretical model.And it measures the vulnerability of the poor by the probability that the farmers will fall into poverty in the future.The relevant parameters are calibrated to simulate the probability of farmers falling into poverty under different circumstances,and the graphical method was used to visually show the effectiveness of policy agricultural insurance towards the mitigation of vulnerability referring to previous studies.The research shows that:(1)When initial assets of farmers are more than the critical value,after inventing agricultural insurance,the probability of falling into poverty is lower for them than not investing;(2)When initial assets of farmers are more than the critical value,the proportion of compensation is greater,that those farmers fall into the poverty is low,and vice versa;(3)Compared with full insurance,when the insurance is insufficient,the probability of poverty declines slowly(slope is smaller);(4)the increase of agricultural insurance premium subsidies helps to reduce the percentage that poor families trap into the poverty.This chapter preliminarily proves the view that policy agriculture insurance has a critical point to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty from the empirical perspective.Chapter seven conducts an empirical analysis towards effects that policy agricultural insurance alleviates the vulnerability of poverty based on survey data from typical villages.Depending on micro-survey data of the classical countryside,this chapter makes an empirical analysis by using FGLS method and Probit model.The figures derive from the research data from the project of The National Social Science Fund of China named “The Mechanism,Effect and Policy Research of China Rural Inclusive Insurance to Alleviate Poverty Vulnerability” in the typical villages including Sichuan,Gansu,Qinghai and Henan which the writer is involved.After measuring samples’ poverty vulnerability and analyzing Probit regression,the results show:(1)With the standard of one-dollar within one-day(2,600 yuan per year),among 622 households surveyed,65.59% of households are poor and vulnerable,of which 25.24% were established by the cardholders,while farmers accounts for40.35%.(2)In overall samples,participating in agricultural insurance,acquire premium subsidies and insurance compensation can reduce poverty vulnerability,but expenditure of premium is not conducive to the relief of poverty vulnerability.Comparing filing risers with the overall sample of farmers,it is found that it is significant to lighten the burden of premiums for filing risers if the policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the poverty vulnerability needed to be exerted.Meanwhile,rising premium subsidies of filing risers could effectively reduce the poverty vulnerability.Among non-filed farmer households,the impact coefficient of agricultural insurance participation to poverty vulnerability is lower than that of filing risers,which claims that joining in policy agricultural insurance has greater marginal utility.The coefficient of premium expenditure variable is lower than the overall sample and the samples of filing risers,indicating that the pressure on premium expenditure is gradually decreasing and the negative impact on vulnerability of poverty is constantly weakening after farmers achieve the cap removal.Chapter eight empirically analyses effect that policy agricultural insurance alleviates the vulnerability of poverty based on provincial panel data.This chapter empirically analyses by using the threshold panel data regression model depending on China’s provincial panel data from 2010 to 2017.After the overall sample and grouped samples are threshold regressed,the results show:(1)When the per capita disposable income of rural residents is low,the expansion of the scale of policy agricultural insurance premiums would bring farmers certain payment pressure to increase the burden on them to some extent,which is not conducive to the relief of poverty vulnerability.With the growth in disposable income,the effect of policy agricultural insurance on mitigating vulnerability is gradually increasing.Although the expansion of the scale of policy agricultural insurance premium subsidies could reduce the stress on farmers’ premium payment to a certain extent,it is not obvious for the impact on disposable income,that is,the effect of mitigating vulnerability.Policy agricultural insurance compensation has a positive effect on the per capita disposable income of rural residents,which could alleviate poverty vulnerability to some extent.(2)After dividing into groups,the regression found that the impact of policy agricultural insurance premium to the disposable income in the low-income group has a double threshold effect,showing a trend of “from negative to positive”.Moreover,there is no threshold effect on premium subsidies and insurance compensation,which could boost the increase of disposable income to a certain extent,but is not obvious.In the middle-income group,the premium income and premium subsidies of policy agricultural insurance have a single threshold effect and the impact coefficient is positive.Moreover,insurance compensation has a single threshold effect,influencing coefficient from negative to positive.In the highincome group,premium income,premium subsidies and insurance compensation of policy agricultural insurance all have single threshold effects and coefficients are positive,but the saliency is low.Chapter nine makes a conclusion,comes up with recommendations and prospects.How to give full play to the effect of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty is the practical significance of this study and the value of this chapter.Studies have shown that the functions of policy agricultural insurance is objective and evolving,whose effectiveness in providing risk guarantee,offering credit guarantee,improving agricultural infrastructure and promoting agricultural technology development could break the vicious circle of poverty vulnerability to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.However,there are still some constraints on the effectiveness of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty,which has a critical point(threshold effect)in alleviating poverty vulnerability as well.In addition,this paper confirms that policy agricultural insurance can reduce poverty vulnerability and policy agriculture insurance has a critical point to alleviate poverty vulnerability from the perspectives of theoretical models,numerical simulations,microdata analysis and macroscopic data analysis.Based on the conclusions of theoretical research and empirical research,this paper suggests that firstly,the objective regularity of the function of policy agricultural insurance should be followed and affirmed its important role in alleviating the vulnerability of poverty.Secondly,understand the micro-utility mechanism of policy agricultural insurance and clarify its functional position in alleviating poverty vulnerability.Thirdly,construct a multi-level structure of policy agricultural insurance products and expand its coverage in poverty alleviation.Fourthly,explore differentiated policy agricultural insurance subsidy system and improve its coverage of guarantee in alleviating poverty vulnerability.Finally,the research holds the view that the path,mechanism and effect of multi-level agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty can be explored in the future.Besides,discuss the two aspects about policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty in the framework of behavioral economics and carry out further research.The marginal contribution and innovation of this paper in this field mainly includes the following aspects:First,explore the position of policy agricultural insurance in alleviating poverty vulnerability.The existing domestic research aimed at insurance or policy agricultural insurance alleviating poverty mainly regards it as a tool or a path,whose objects primarily focuses on poverty alleviation targets under the poverty line currently.Nevertheless,those who are rarely concerned,being above the poverty line but having high vulnerabilities are likely to be poor and return to poverty due to disasters.From the perspective of vulnerability,this paper not only pays attention to current poverty,but also focuses on possible poverty in the future and agricultural risk factors leading to poverty.It conducts research from a forward-looking perspective and provides ideas for establishing a long-term mechanism of preventing poverty alleviation and sustainable poverty alleviation.Poverty from the perspective of vulnerability,objects of research has larger scope and the content includes risk.Under this perspective the study could clarify deep reasons about policy agriculture insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty and also be unequivocal to its orientation.In other words,its effect of alleviating poverty vulnerability exists a critical point.Only when the effect is above the critical point,it can alleviate poverty vulnerability.Therefore,while affirming the important role of policy agricultural insurance in alleviating the vulnerability of poverty,this paper also suggests that if this inappropriate tool is used by incorrect people at improper time,it may increase poverty.Second,based on the framework of poverty vulnerability,the paper discusses the mechanism of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.Unlike previous studies on poverty,poverty vulnerability is forwardlooking and integrates risk into poverty research,which focuses on the impact of possible risks to farmers’ poverty in the future.In the analysis of “risk-vulnerability”,this paper explores the mechanism of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.Under the collective effect of external risks(universal agricultural risks)and internal risks(farmers’ own weak capabilities of risk management),poverty vulnerability is gradually generated;the progressive evolution of exposure,sensitivity and adaptability promotes the evolution of poverty vulnerability.To prevent and respond to the vulnerability of poverty,effective risk management measures are needed.There is no doubt that policy agricultural insurance is one of the most effective means in the insurance field as well as a fundamental approach of agriculture risk management.The mechanism of policy agriculture insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty is consisted by generation,evolution and prevention of poverty vulnerability.Third,it attempts to analyze the mechanism of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty from the micro and macro level.it can be observed in practice that policy agricultural insurance can alleviate poverty vulnerability to some extent,as behind these phenomena there are influencing factors and transmission mechanisms.This paper analyzes the macro and micro influencing factors and constraints of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty from the three levels such as government,insurance institutions and farmers,and analyzes transmission mechanism of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty from both direct and indirect aspects: policy agricultural insurance achieves the goal alleviating vulnerability by direct transmission mechanism like stabilizing farmers’ income and smoothing consumption;it achieves the same goal by indirect transmission mechanism by improving economy and developing the equivalent distribution of income.Fourth,the paper tries to use theoretical models to quantify the effectiveness of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate the vulnerability of poverty.Utility is the subjective feeling of human beings,whereas it can be expressed by mathematical formulas such as total utility and marginal utility.In the existing research,the theoretical model can be divided into two categories.One is just to study the consumption utility of agricultural insurance,while the other is to build a model about household asset growth and study the probability of falling into poverty.Combining emphasis with the theme,this paper integrates two sorts of models and introduces insufficient insurance according to the characteristics of agricultural insurance to accomplish the innovation of model construction to a certain extent.The utility function,Berman equation and Markov process are combined and numerically simulated and the role of policy agricultural insurance to alleviate poverty vulnerability is demonstrated from theories.Fifth,using micro survey data of typical villages to evaluate poverty vulnerability of farmers and analyze the impact of policy agricultural insurance to its vulnerability.How much influence does policy agricultural insurance have on poverty vulnerability? How much could it reduce poverty vulnerability of farmers?These are the focuses of all walks of life and are also crucial contents of this paper.However,the existing database cannot satisfy empirical requirements of this paper,as most micro survey data does not have figure directed at agricultural insurance.Thus,in this study,the author used the micro-investigation data from the project of National Social Science Fund in the typical villages in the western region in 2019.On the one hand,it assesses the poverty vulnerability of farmers.On the other hand,it explores the reality that policy agriculture insurance affects poverty vulnerability and discusses the main influencing factors.Although the quantity of samples in not massive,it still has significance to explain.Furthermore,this paper also divides the affected farmers into filing risers and non-filed farmers,and then analyzes how policy agricultural insurance influences poverty vulnerability. |
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