Study On Relative Poverty Measurement And Governance Path In Rural China

Since the reform and opening up,China has entered a stage of rapid economic development,and the problem of poverty has begun to enter a stage of continuous alleviation and elimination.Especially since the 18th Party Congress,under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,China has organized and implemented the war on poverty eradication,which is unprecedented in human history,the most vigorous and benefits the largest population.Based on the advantages of the system and the level of economic development of reform and opening up,and through a series of extraordinary initiatives,China has won the war on poverty eradication in 2020 as scheduled,eliminating absolute poverty,making up for the overall the shortcomings of building a moderately prosperous society have created good conditions for promoting common prosperity.At this stage,the most difficult and onerous task of promoting common prosperity still lies in rural areas,and solving the problem of relative poverty in rural areas is the bottom line for solidly promoting common prosperity among farmers and rural areas.in this context,the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly pointed out: "Resolutely win the battle against poverty,consolidate the results of poverty eradication,and establish a long-term mechanism to solve relative poverty".Then,how to correctly understand and grasp "relative poverty" as a problem in China? How to objectively and accurately measure the current situation of relative poverty in China’s rural areas,given that the gap between urban and rural regional development is still large and the dual structure of urban and rural areas is the reality of the country? More importantly,what are the governance concepts and the poverty alleviation effects and mechanisms of the main governance initiatives to alleviate relative rural poverty in China? These questions have important theoretical and practical significance for improving the governance path of relative rural poverty in the new development stage,establishing a long-term mechanism for solving relative rural poverty,and solidly promoting the common prosperity of farmers in rural areas.Based on the actual situation in China,this paper firstly compares the academic literature and policy documents on rural relative poverty in China since the reform and opening up,and summarizes and clarifies the stages of academic and practical understanding of the problem of rural relative poverty and the main governance initiatives since the 1990s(see Section 1.3.4),especially since the entry of the new era,along with the transformation of the main social contradictions in China,rural relative poverty has become more profound and the problem has become more prominent.Relative poverty has become more profound and the problem has become more prominent,and the focus and working methods of poverty alleviation in China have thus begun to undergo fundamental changes.Based on this,we define the concept of relative poverty in the new era,explain the theoretical basis of relative poverty identification,measurement and governance,and analyze the mechanisms of livelihood financial expenditure,land transfer and education human capital improvement to alleviate rural relative poverty,so as to support the identification,measurement and empirical analysis of rural relative poverty.Secondly,based on the weak relative poverty theory and inclusive development theory,we adopt the weak relative poverty criterion measurement method,FGT index,"identification-growth-distribution" three-component decomposition method,and the improved Kakwani & Pernia index and PEGR index,respectively.the PEGR index is used to measure and analyze the relative poverty standard,the relative poverty level in rural areas,and the poverty benefit of the economic growth mode respectively.Again,based on the analysis of the mechanism of alleviating rural relative poverty by livelihood fiscal expenditure,land transfer,and educational human capital enhancement,the panel threshold regression model,propensity score matching(PSM)model,and quantile regression model are used to empirically test their effects on alleviating rural relative poverty and their mechanisms of action,respectively.Finally,based on the theoretical analysis,statistical measurement and empirical tests,the paper mainly proposes targeted policy recommendations to improve the path of rural relative poverty governance in the new development stage.After the above series of research work,the main research contents and conclusions of this paper are as follows:The first part is the theoretical foundation and analytical framework(see Chapter 2).Based on the literature review section,we analyze the stages of understanding and main governance measures of rural relative poverty in China since the 1990s,define the concept of relative poverty in the new era,elaborate Marx’s theory of proletarian impoverishment,viability theory,weak relative poverty theory and inclusive development theory,and construct a theoretical analysis framework of livelihood fiscal expenditure,land transfer and education human capital enhancement and rural relative poverty alleviation under the guidance of their theories.the theoretical analysis framework of relative poverty alleviation is constructed under the guidance of these theories to prepare for the following empirical analysis on the identification and measurement of relative poverty in rural areas and the main governance initiatives to alleviate relative poverty in rural areas.The second part is the identification and measurement of rural relative poverty(see Chapter 3).Based on the theory of weak relative poverty and the theory of inclusive development,we compare and filter the rural relative poverty criteria that are suitable for the current situation in China,and then adopt the FGT index,the three-component decomposition method of "identification-growth-distribution" and the improved Kakwani & Pernia index.Pernia and PEGR indices are used to measure the relative poverty in rural areas,the impact of economic growth and income distribution on the change of relative poverty in rural areas,and the extent to which the economic growth method is beneficial to poverty,respectively.It is found that(1)at this stage,China is suitable to adopt the rural relative poverty standard measured by permanent residence at the national level with urban-rural differentiation.(2)the degree of rural relative poverty in China has decreased more significantly from 2012 to 2018.(3)in the decomposition of changes in rural relative poverty,the growth component always alleviates poverty,and the distribution component and identification component always reflect an increase in poverty.(4)in the measure of the degree of poverty benefit of the economic growth approach,the rural relative poor benefit from economic growth,but the proportion of benefit is smaller than that of the rural non-relative poor.The third part is the empirical analysis of livelihood fiscal spending,land transfer,and education human capital enhancement to alleviate rural relative poverty and their mechanisms of action(see Chapters 4,5,and 6).Based on the analysis of the mechanisms of alleviating rural relative poverty by livelihood financial expenditures,land transfer,and educational human capital enhancement,the mechanisms of alleviating rural relative poverty by livelihood financial expenditures,land transfer,and educational human capital enhancement are discussed in depth and systematically.the study finds that:(1)Fiscal expenditures on people’s livelihood have a significant effect on alleviating rural relative poverty.If fiscal decentralization is used as the threshold variable,the alleviation effect shows a non-linear relationship,i.e.,the alleviation effect decreases when fiscal decentralization is too large.Further,the alleviation effect of livelihood fiscal expenditure structure and sub-regional livelihood fiscal expenditure has significant heterogeneity.(2)Land transfer,land transfer out and land transfer in have alleviating effects on rural relative poverty,and the alleviating effect of land transfer out is larger than that of land transfer in.Further,the mediating effects of livelihood strategies and income levels were analyzed,and it was found that land transfer out could alleviate rural relative poverty by engaging in non-farm employment and raising income,while land transfer in could alleviate rural relative poverty by engaging in agricultural employment,but did not significantly affect rural relative poverty by raising income.(3)the improvement of educational human capital brought by both academic and non-academic education can significantly alleviate rural relative poverty,and the alleviation effect of academic education is greater than that of non-academic education.Further,non-academic education promotes the poverty alleviation effect of educational human capital with increasing age of individuals,while academic education does not significantly alleviate poverty with age change.in addition,there is no significant substitution relationship between academic and non-academic education,but there may be a mutual promotion effect.Meanwhile,academic education can significantly alleviate rural relative poverty through various income structures,while non-academic education can only alleviate rural relative poverty through business income and wage income.Based on the above findings,this paper focuses on precise identification and dynamic monitoring,deepening the reform of the income distribution system,strengthening financial expenditures for people’s livelihood,promoting land transfer,and enhancing human capital in education to improve the governance paths to alleviate rural relative poverty in the new development stage(see Chapter 7).Specifically,on the basis of promoting "inclusive development",we should focus on "people",increase investment in education and human capital,improve the quality of education,strengthen vocational education and skills training,and improve the quality of the relatively poor rural labor force."Land" is the basis,activating land elements,deepening the reform of "three rights",broadening the channels for the rural poor to increase their income and wealth,and increasing their property and equity income.For the protection of the people’s livelihood,the financial expenditure of the people’s livelihood to ensure the bottom line of the basic livelihood.