This paper evaluates the effects of the Home Appliances Going to the Countryside (HAGC) policy, afiscal subsidy program implemented in China to boost private consumption of home appliances in rural areas from 2007 to ...This paper evaluates the effects of the Home Appliances Going to the Countryside (HAGC) policy, afiscal subsidy program implemented in China to boost private consumption of home appliances in rural areas from 2007 to 2012. Using the policy as anatural experiment and employing the difference-in-difference estimator, we find that the policy did not increase domestic sales of relevant goods as expected;instead, it actually reduced domestic sales and significantly promoted exports. These surprising results are robust across regressions of alternative datasets, more controls, and different regions. We further provide detailed information of undisclosed audit data for acounty in Zhejiang province to shed light on the underlying mechanism of such unexpected results, suggesting loopholes in the HAGC and changes in export tax rebate rates.展开更多
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.71703180 and 71603297)Faqin Lin acknowledges the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71773148).
文摘This paper evaluates the effects of the Home Appliances Going to the Countryside (HAGC) policy, afiscal subsidy program implemented in China to boost private consumption of home appliances in rural areas from 2007 to 2012. Using the policy as anatural experiment and employing the difference-in-difference estimator, we find that the policy did not increase domestic sales of relevant goods as expected;instead, it actually reduced domestic sales and significantly promoted exports. These surprising results are robust across regressions of alternative datasets, more controls, and different regions. We further provide detailed information of undisclosed audit data for acounty in Zhejiang province to shed light on the underlying mechanism of such unexpected results, suggesting loopholes in the HAGC and changes in export tax rebate rates.
