成果｜陈志钢等在CER发文探讨村民社会资本是否阻碍了贫困瞄准

浙江大学中国农村发展研究院国际院长、国际食物政策研究所（IFPRI）高级研究员陈志钢教授团队在经济学SSCI期刊China Economic Review（《中国经济评论》）发表文章“Does villager social capital hinder poverty targeting? Evidence from poverty-stricken county of Western China”，文章作者为程晓宇（第一作者）、王建英、陈志钢（通讯作者）。

村民社会资本是否阻碍了贫困瞄准?来自中国西部贫困县的证据

Does villager social capital hinder poverty targeting? Evidence from poverty-stricken county of Western China

China Economic Review

程晓宇、王建英、陈志钢

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101728

研究内容：

在发展中国家广泛实施的分权式贫困瞄准项目中，瞄准效果不佳受到了广泛关注。不同于以往的文献重点关注精英俘获导致的瞄准失误现象，本文在中国精准扶贫政策实施的背景下，探讨了村民社会资本对贫困瞄准的影响。实证研究使用了来自2017年西部地区国家级贫困县3个行政村17个自然村的独特普查数据，并采用主成分分析法将互惠、帮工时间、礼金支出、政治联系指标合并为一个村民社会资本水平指数。基于工具变量法的估计结果证明了社会资本水平更高的农户更有可能成为精准扶贫政策的受益者。相较于贫困户，非贫困户通常有着更高的社会资本水平，从而可以通过动员其社会资本水平来获取本应分配给贫困人口的项目名额，进而导致瞄准偏误。村民社会资本对贫困瞄准的这种影响在控制了政治精英俘获效应后仍然存在。以上研究发现表明，村民社会资本是中国农村分权式贫困瞄准出现瞄准偏误的根本原因，同时也表明社会资本并不是穷人的资本。

研究结果：

首次实证考察了村民社会资本对贫困瞄准偏误的影响。研究结果显示：第一，村民社会资本是造成中国农村贫困定位误差的根本原因。第二，在“回头看”政策实施之后，政治精英捕获现象基本被消除。研究结果表明，在分权式贫困瞄准政策中，村民社会资本并不是穷人的资本。

英文摘要：

Poor targeting performance is a common concern in the increasingly implemented decentralized targeted antipoverty programs in developing countries. Different from previous literature that focuses on targeting errors caused by elite capture, we explore the role of villager social capital as a whole in poverty targeting in the context of China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) policy. The empirical analysis uses a unique census-type data from three administrative and seventeen natural villages in the poverty-stricken county in Western China in 2017. Villager social capital is measured by a proxy index by combing reciprocity, support time, gift expenses, and political connection of villagers. We verify that the villager with rich villager social capital is more likely to be a beneficiary of TPA by using instrumental variable estimation. The nonpoor can mobilize their higher level of social capital than the poor to capture the beneficiary quotas that should be allocated to the poor, resulting in mistargeting. Such effect persists after controlling political elite capture effects. The findings point out villager social capital is the root cause of poor targeting in decentralized targeting programs in rural China and also lend new support from China to the classic debate on social capital is not the capital of the poor.