Policy effect of solar photovoltaic poverty alleviation on promoting rural revitalization

Abstract

Based on the valid questionnaire of 1251 households in 8 provinces of China, this paper adopts the Differences- in- Differences (DID) model to analyze the policy effect of photovoltaic poverty alleviation (PVPA) on promoting Rural Revitalization in terms of village governance, industrial development, human settlements and household life. Then, this paper conducts robustness tests by means of placebo test, propensity score matching, substitution variables, etc. The results show that: (1) PVPA can significantly improve the development of village- level industrial development and human settlements, but the policy effect on promoting village governance is not significant. (2) From the perspective of household life, PVPA can significantly improve living conditions and infrastructure conditions, but the policy effect on promoting employment is not significant. (3) The robustness test shows that PVPA is conducive to improving the household life satisfaction. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effects of PVPA on different types of light resource areas are significantly different. The impact on the first and second types of resource areas is mainly concentrated on the household life, and the impact on the third type of resource areas is mainly concentrated on industrial development and human settlements. Compared with non- poor households, the policy effect of PVPA on the poor is more significant, that is, there is no phenomenon of“elite capture”. It can be seen that the policy effect of PVPA on Rural Revitalization is mainly reflected in promoting industrial development and human settlements, living conditions and infrastructure conditions. In the future, policy makers need to focus on improving village governance capacity and promoting employment.