Explore Agenda Setting of Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy: An Analysis Based on Difference-in-Difference Regression Model and Multiple Streams Framework

Abstract

Although China's economy has developed rapidly in the past few decades, meanwhile, the poverty alleviation policies in China for poor rural areas have been adjusted and improved to achieve common prosperity. In particular, the targeted poverty alleviation policy has eliminated absolute poverty, which is a remarkable achievement in history. Therefore, why the targeted poverty alleviation policy emerged and how it was agenda-setting are the research questions of this article. An analysis combining the Difference-in-Difference Model and the Multiple Streams Approach is used to explain the agenda-setting of targeted poverty alleviation policy in China. The study concludes that although the poverty alleviation policy of the previous stage has promoted the economic development of poor counties, there was an increasingly widening economic development gap between urban and rural. This paper suggests that the strong political stream is a significant factor for policy change and the political elite leads the people to unite to get rid of absolute poverty and improve the quality of life of the poor people, which explains the agenda setting of targeted poverty alleviation policy.