村庄直接民主对农村居民幸福感的影响

Impact of Village's Direct Democracy on Farmers' Happiness

运用中国中西部地区4个省8个县64个村庄956个农村居民的调查数据,本文探讨了村庄直接民主对农村居民幸福感的影响。研究发现:村庄直接民主能够显著增加农村居民幸福感,村民大会召开次数每增加1个百分点带来的幸福感增加相当于农村居民家庭年人均纯收入增加1.62个百分点带来的幸福感增加;把穷人与非穷人分开进行分析时,村庄直接民主对非穷人的幸福感有显著的正向影响,但对穷人幸福感的增加没有显著影响。因此,本文认为,在客观条件允许的情况下,发展村庄直接民主仍是必要的,并应采取适当的政策促使村庄直接民主能够增进穷人的幸福。

Based on the survey data of 956 farmers and 64 poor villages from 8 counties in 4 provinces in Midwestern China, this paper aims to seek the relationship between village ' s direct democracy and farmers' happiness. For the total sample farmers, village's direct democracy has a significant positive impact on farmers' subjective well-being. One percent increase of the number of village assembly will, inour estimation on happiness gaining, equal 1.62 percent increase of average farmer's pure income to gain the same increase of subjective well-being. However, the separate analysis of the poor sample and non-poor sample gives the contrary conclusions that the village's direct democracy could increase the happiness of the non-poor sample significantly, but not the poor sample. Therefore, we agree that it is necessary to develop village ' s direct democracy if the objective conditions permit. At the same time,appropriate measures must be taken to ensure that village's direct democracy should increase the happiness of the poor.