中国农村低保制度的保护效果研究——来自中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)的经验证据

Protective Effectiveness of Rural Minimum Subsistence Guarantee System in China:Empirical Evidence from China Family Panel Studies

基于2012年中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,本文从瞄准效果、救助充足性和减贫效应三个方面对中国农村低保救助制度的保护效果进行了全面系统的考察。为了获得更可靠的低保瞄准评估结果,文章使用Ravallion反事实模型和Alkire-Foster多维度贫困测量框架来识别贫困。考虑到行为激励效应可能对保护效果评估结果的扭曲性影响,本文通过倾向值匹配(PSM)和估计边际税率两种方法对农村低保救助的行为激励效应进行了开拓性检验。研究结果表明,尽管其瞄准效率在发展中国家同类型减贫项目中处于较高水平,但农村低保的瞄准偏误仍然不容忽视;农村低保救助水平不足问题严重;尽管获得救助对低保样本的减贫效果较为显著,但对应保样本的减贫效果则不太理想;另外,初步的实证检验并未发现低保救助有显著的负向行为激励效应。这表明,未来农村低保政策改革的重点仍然是通过改善瞄准和提高救助水平来促进其保护性功能的实现。

The objective of this paper is to examines the social protection effectiveness of the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee Policy(Dibao)in rural China.Specifically,rural Dibao's targeting performance,assistance adequacy,and anti-poverty effectiveness were rigorously analyzed respectively.Behavioral incentives,which may distort Dibao's protection effectiveness evaluation results,were also tested initiatively.Based on a nationrepresentative dataset,the 2012 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS),several quantitative methods were conducted in the evaluation.Especially,Ravallion's counterfactual framework and AF multidimensional poverty measurement approach were applied to identify the poor when calculating rural Dibao's targeting errors.And propensity score matching and estimation of the marginal tax rate were used to assess Dibao's possible behavioral incentives.The conclusions suggest that,while rural Dibao appears to be better targeted than most similar anti-poverty programs in the developing world,its targeting error is still significant.The problem of inadequate benefit is serious.Rural Dibao has a sizable impact on poverty reduction among its participants,but its poverty reduction effect among the eligible sample is much smaller.And rural Dibao's negative behavioral incentives range from very small to nonexistent.The study's empirical results can inform policymakers of rural Dibao's protective effectiveness and the key problems in its implementation.Rural Dibao's future reforms should continue to focus on enhancing its social protection effectiveness through better targeting and providing more adequate benefits.Well-developed multidimensional poverty measurement frameworks,rather than a traditional income poverty criterion,were utilized to obtain more reliable evaluation results of rural Dibao's targeting performance.As a pioneering effort in the literature,the study tests rural Dibao's behavioral incentives using rigorous quantitative methods.