Hidden impact? Household saving in response to a poor-area development project

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ravallion, M; Chen, SH
• 署名单位: The World Bank
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.12.003
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 2183-2204
• 关键词: savings; development projects; Evaluation; poor areas; CHINA

摘要

The possibility that poor households may prefer to save the income gains from a development project raises concerns about how well standard evaluation methods-using data collected over relatively short periods-can capture the true welfare impacts. By the widely used differencc-indifference method, the Southwest China Poverty Reduction Project had little current impact on the proportion of people in beneficiary villages consuming less than US$1/day-despite a public outlay of US$400 million. However, the program had much larger impacts on incomes than consumptions. Uncertainty about the project's future impact probably made it hard for participants to infer the gain in permanent income, so they saved a high proportion of the current income gains. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.