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Intergovernmental transfers and local education provision — Evaluating China's 8-7 National Plan for Poverty Reduction

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  • Lü, Xiaobo

Abstract

Intergovernmental transfers are an important source of local public goods and services provision in many developing countries. Yet the empirical evidence on their effectiveness remains inconclusive partly because transfers are endogenous to political influence. This paper investigates the impact of a mix of intergovernmental transfers from a large-scale poverty relief program on local education spending in China between 1994 and 2000. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I first show no systematic evidence that counties benefiting from the program enhanced local education spending during the period of program implementation. I further show that the program has neither short-term nor long-term impacts on illiteracy reduction for the targeted counties.

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  • Lü, Xiaobo, 2015. "Intergovernmental transfers and local education provision — Evaluating China's 8-7 National Plan for Poverty Reduction," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 200-211.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:33:y:2015:i:c:p:200-211
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2015.02.001
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    Cited by:

    1. Yingfeng Fang & Fen Zhang, 2021. "The Future Path To China’s Poverty Reduction—Dynamic Decomposition Analysis With The Evolution Of China’s Poverty Reduction Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 507-538, December.
    2. Qiao, Junfeng & Lyu, Jinbo & Yin, Xingyi, 2024. "Do intergovernmental transfers accelerate the formation of zombie firms? A study based on fuzzy regression discontinuity analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1241-1256.

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