扶贫政策的经济增长效应:来自光伏产业扶贫的证据

The Economic Growth Effect of Poverty Alleviation Policies:Evidence of Poverty Alleviation from the Photovoltaic Industry

完善推动光伏新能源等战略性新兴产业发展政策,健全因地制宜发展新质生产力体制机制,是贯彻落实党的二十届三中全会精神的重要举措。本文利用2010~2020年国家级贫困县面板数据,以光伏扶贫政策的下达作为一项准自然实验,通过双重差分法评估光伏扶贫政策对县域经济增长的影响。研究发现,光伏扶贫政策使重点扶贫县的GDP和人均GDP分别提高了3.2%、5.3%。多种稳健性检验、动态效应和工具变量结果均支持这一结论。这种促进作用在国家帮扶力度更大地区以及光照更强地区更明显。基于政策强度的分析显示,在贫困村与贫困户帮扶比例越高、光伏电站建设与覆盖规模越大的县区,光伏扶贫政策对经济增长的益贫效应更强。从影响机制来看,光伏扶贫政策为居民提供了新的收入渠道,拓宽了就业机会,并通过改善供电环境提高了市场活力。本文为乡村振兴战略中光伏产业政策的制定和优化提供理论依据,有助于构建农村地区可持续发展的长效机制,理解新质生产力的扶贫效应。

Improving policies to promote the development of strategic emerging industries such as photovoltaic solar energy,and perfecting the system and mechanism for developing new productive forces according to local conditions are important measures to implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.Photovoltaic solar energy has not only promoted high-quality economic development but also injected strong momentum into China's poverty alleviation.In the process of poverty alleviation,photovoltaic projects have played an important role in poverty governance in China,relying on their characteristics of resource availability,simple operation,easy maintenance,and stable returns.Solar photovoltaic power generation not only represents innovation in technology and energy structure but also reflects the ability of new quality productive forces to promote the coordinated development of the economy,society,and environment.We used the panel data of 832 national poverty-stricken counties from 2010 to 2020 and took the issuance of the first batch of photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects in the 13th Five-Year Plan at the end of 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment.Further,we used the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the impact and mechanism of photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects on county economic growth.Our study reveals that compared with non-key poverty alleviation counties,the photovoltaic poverty alleviation policy has significantly improved the economic development level of key photovoltaic poverty alleviation counties.On average,the real GDP and per capita real GDP of key photovoltaic poverty alleviation counties increased by 3.2%and 5.3%,respectively,after the implementation of the policy.The conclusion remains unchanged after we used the light intensity in the year before policy implementation as an instrumental variable for policy selection.From the perspective of the policy's heterogeneous effect,the photovoltaic poverty alleviation policy has a more significant impact on economic growth in areas with greater national poverty alleviation efforts and stronger sunlight.To further evaluate the impact of policy content,we innovatively constructed a policy intensity variable based on the construction indicators of various photovoltaic poverty alleviation plans and found that the photovoltaic poverty alleviation policy plays a greater role in promoting economic growth in counties with more povertystricken villages and households and those with larger photovoltaic power station construction and coverage.In terms of the impact mechanism,the photovoltaic poverty alleviation policy provides residents with new income channels,expands local employment opportunities,and increases the entry of commercial entities by improving the power supply environment.This study contributes to the literature mainly in the following three aspects.First,in terms of causal identification,existing studies on industrial poverty alleviation policies often find it challenging to exclude the concurrent impact of other poverty alleviation policies,potentially biasing the estimation results.In conjunction with the basic requirements for implementing photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies,this study uses pre-policy light intensity as an instrumental variable to select photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies.This approach mitigates common endogeneity issues in poverty alleviation policy evaluation and enhances causal identification accuracy.Using the standard difference-indifferences method for policy evaluation,this study constructs a policy intensity index and employs the generalized difference-in-differences method to assess the impact of photovoltaic poverty alleviation policy intensity on economic growth.This enhances our understanding of the heterogeneous effects of photovoltaic poverty alleviation and improves policy implementation.Second,this study enriches research on the implementation effects of photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies.Although existing studies primarily evaluated the impacts of these policies on ecological environments and social welfare,they often neglected the economic impacts and lacked discussion on policy mechanisms.Although existing literature evaluates the economic and social impacts of photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies,it rarely delves into how and why these policies affect economic and social outcomes in poverty-stricken areas.This study not only explores the economic growth impacts of photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies but also elucidates and examines policy mechanisms related to income channels,employment opportunities,and commercial entities.It provides a theoretical basis for optimizing and improving photovoltaic poverty alleviation and other industrial poverty alleviation policies in the future.Third,this study holds practical significance.Achieving common prosperity requires balanced regional economic development and enhanced opportunities for poverty alleviation.From the perspective of photovoltaic poverty alleviation policies,this study expands research on economic growth influencers in impoverished areas,consolidates and expands China's poverty alleviation achievements and results,and supplements existing poverty governance literature.Policy recommendations in this article on constructing and developing the photovoltaic industry within the rural revitalization strategy offer practical insights for poverty prevention,promoting sustainable rural development,and accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces.