Exploring precise poverty alleviation policies based on causal inference: a case study from China

AbstractTo explore the effect of targeted poverty alleviation policies in Guangdong Province from the perspective of causal inference, this paper conducts quantitative research based on panel data of poverty-stricken counties in Guangdong Province from 2013 to 2020. Specifically, breakpoint regression is used to analyze the initial effect of the policy, instrumental variables are used to analyze the long-term effect of the policy implementation, and finally, the generalized comprehensive control method is used to make a comparative study. The results show that: (1) The targeted poverty alleviation policy in Guangdong Province has a remarkable effect on poverty reduction; (2) The effect of targeted poverty alleviation policy is still remarkable by comparing the implemented policy with the unimplemented one in Guangdong Province; (3) The improvement of market economic activity can effectively promote the increase of farmers' personal net income in poor areas of Guangdong Province.Keywords: Breakpoint regressioncomparative evaluationeffect assessmentgeneralized integrated control methodinstrumental variables Author contributionsConceptualization, Qing Guo; methodology, Qing Guo; software and formal analysis Youyang Liu and Min Zhu; writing—original draft preparation, Qing Guo and Youyang Liu; writing—review and editing, Qing Guo, Youyang Liu and Min Zhu; supervision and funding acquisition, Qing Guo. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe data and estimation commands that support the findings of this paper are available on request from the first and corresponding authors.Additional informationFundingThis research is supported by the National Social Science Foundation (21CJL007); the Humanities and Social Science Project of China's Ministry of Education (20YJC790036); the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2020A1515010629); the Basic and Applied Basic Research Project of Guangzhou (202102021185).