Park, A., S. Wang, et al. (2010). Community-based development and poverty alleviation: an evaluation of China's poor village investment program. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
This report evaluates China's flagship poverty alleviation programme, a community-based development programme which began in 2001. The programme finances public investments in designated poor villages based on participatory village planning. The authors use matching methods and a panel household and village data set with national coverage to compare changes from 2001 to 2004 in designated poor villages that had started to plan investments and in designated poor villages that had yet to begin planning investments. The findings show that the programme significantly increased both government- and village-financed investments. However, the benefits were uneven between households with different levels of poverty with the communities, with greater benefits to richer households and relatively few benefits to poorer households.