Impacts of targeted poverty alleviation on urban-rural residential energy consumption inequality: Evidence from 178 Chinese prefecture-level cities

Abstract

China's targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) policy is a revolutionary approach to poverty governance with profound implications for eliminating poverty in rural areas. However, previous studies did not explore whether the TPA policy can reduce energy consumption inequality between urban and rural residents (UREI). Therefore, our study aims to investigate the impact of the TPA policy on UREI. We first construct UREI estimates for 178 prefecture-level cities in China covering the period from 2010 to 2020 using the Theil index. We then apply the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine how the TPA policy affects UREI. Our empirical results confirm that the implementation of the TPA policy can significantly reduce UREI by 0.8%. Moreover, our dynamic effect analysis shows that the TPA policy has a lag effect on UREI that progressively deepens over time. Our heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the TPA policy has a significantly negative impact on UREI in the coastal region, while it has a significantly positive impact in the inland region. Based on these findings, we highlight several relevant policy implications for the Chinese government to enhance the benefits of rural-oriented policies in reducing UREI during the rural revitalization process.