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A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences

This paper examines the causal impact of poverty reduction interventions on the social preferences of the poor. A multifaceted poverty reduction program in China provides a setting for the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. The design compares households with base-year income just below...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Wenchao, Leng, Zhiming, Yi, Junjian, Zhong, Songfa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10013832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36867687
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219078120
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author Li, Wenchao
Leng, Zhiming
Yi, Junjian
Zhong, Songfa
author_facet Li, Wenchao
Leng, Zhiming
Yi, Junjian
Zhong, Songfa
author_sort Li, Wenchao
collection PubMed
description This paper examines the causal impact of poverty reduction interventions on the social preferences of the poor. A multifaceted poverty reduction program in China provides a setting for the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. The design compares households with base-year income just below a preset criterion, who were more likely to receive the program treatment, with households just above the criterion. Five years after the program’s launch, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to measure the distributional preferences of household heads. Combining quasi-random variation from program rules with administrative census and experimental data, we find both economic and behavioral consequences of the program: It increased household income by 50% 5 y later, increased consistency with utility maximization by household heads, and increased their efficiency preference while reducing selfishness and leaving equality preference unchanged. Our findings advance scientific understanding of social preferences formation and highlight a broad perspective in evaluating poverty reduction interventions.
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spelling pubmed-100138322023-09-03 A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences Li, Wenchao Leng, Zhiming Yi, Junjian Zhong, Songfa Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Social Sciences This paper examines the causal impact of poverty reduction interventions on the social preferences of the poor. A multifaceted poverty reduction program in China provides a setting for the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. The design compares households with base-year income just below a preset criterion, who were more likely to receive the program treatment, with households just above the criterion. Five years after the program’s launch, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment to measure the distributional preferences of household heads. Combining quasi-random variation from program rules with administrative census and experimental data, we find both economic and behavioral consequences of the program: It increased household income by 50% 5 y later, increased consistency with utility maximization by household heads, and increased their efficiency preference while reducing selfishness and leaving equality preference unchanged. Our findings advance scientific understanding of social preferences formation and highlight a broad perspective in evaluating poverty reduction interventions. National Academy of Sciences 2023-03-03 2023-03-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10013832/ /pubmed/36867687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219078120 Text en Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Li, Wenchao
Leng, Zhiming
Yi, Junjian
Zhong, Songfa
A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title_full A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title_fullStr A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title_full_unstemmed A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title_short A multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
title_sort multifaceted poverty reduction program has economic and behavioral consequences
topic Social Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10013832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36867687
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219078120
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