The Impact Of Transportation Infrastructure On Rural Poverty Reduction

Poverty is a common challenge faced by countries and people all over the world.Eradication of poverty is not only the common mission of human social development and progress,but also a worldwide problem.As the largest developing country in the world,China has always regarded poverty reduction as an important goal and task of economic and social development.By the end of 2020,China had completely eliminated absolute poverty and regional overall poverty,and became the first developing country to achieve the goal of poverty reduction in Millennium Development Goals.China's success in eradicating absolute poverty is the result of precise central and local policies,the organic combination of government leadership and social participation,and the joint efforts of the whole industry and all sectors.As the social leading capital,transportation infrastructure provides the foundation and guarantee for the realization of rural poverty reduction,and it is also an important means and tool to promote rural poverty reduction measures.Therefore,the in-depth analysis and discussion on the mechanism and effect of transportation infrastructure in the process of rural poverty reduction can enrich the existing anti-poverty theory and expand the research perspective of transportation infrastructure development theory;and also it is a summary of the practical experience of rural poverty reduction in China,and it can provide reference for rural poverty reduction in other developing countries.According to the research idea of "raising problems,analyzing problems and solving problems",this paper systematically studies the impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction.Firstly,it comprehensively combs the theoretical basis of the impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction,as well as the relevant research on transportation infrastructure and rural poverty reduction at home and abroad.Based on the analysis of the current development characteristics of transportation infrastructure and the historical achievements of rural poverty reduction,this paper clarifies the impact mechanism of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction from three aspects: direct impact mechanism,indirect impact mechanism and nonlinear impact mechanism.It reveals that the direct impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction is through reducing production,transportation and transaction costs,improving industrial production efficiency,optimizing rural industrial structure,promoting commodity circulation and trade development,and reducing the cost of rural residents' access to social services,so as to improving the income level,consumption level and welfare level of the rural poor.The indirect impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction is mainly realized through the intermediary effect of economic growth and income distribution.Transportation infrastructure has a nonlinear impact on rural poverty reduction.Whether transportation infrastructure can have a positive impact on rural poverty reduction depends on whether its development level is coordinated with the process of rural poverty reduction.Secondly,on the basis of current situation analysis and mechanism analysis,this paper makes an empirical test by using China's inter-provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019 through a variety of measurement methods.First,this paper tests the direct impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction by building a System GMM model,and then tests the indirect impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction by building an Intermediary Effect model.Second,the Threshold Effect model is used to test the nonlinear impact of transportation foundation on rural poverty reduction.Finally,from the perspective of input-output,Window-DEA Analysis model is used to quantitatively measure the rural poverty reduction efficiency of transportation infrastructure.Through empirical analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)The empirical results based on the System GMM model show that,at the national level,transportation infrastructure has a significant direct impact on rural poverty reduction,and at the regional level,the direct impact is higher in the western region,followed by the central region and the eastern region.Taking economic growth and income distribution as intermediary variables,this paper tests the existence of two intermediary effects of economic growth and income distribution.The results show that at the national level,transportation infrastructure has some intermediary effects on rural poverty reduction due to economic growth and income distribution.The results in the eastern region and western region are similar to those at the national level.While in the central region,transportation infrastructure has some intermediary effects on rural poverty reduction due to economic growth.(2)The empirical results based on the Threshold Effect model show that the impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction will have a threshold effect with the change of its stock.The lack of transportation infrastructure stock will hinder the rural poverty reduction.On the contrary,when its stock level exceeds a certain extreme value,it will also reduce its promoting effect on rural poverty reduction.At the same time,the threshold effect has significant regional differences.At the national level,transportation infrastructure has a triple threshold effect on rural poverty reduction.The initial negative impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction gradually changes to a positive impact,and then the positive impact shows a non-linear increasing trend.In the eastern and central regions,transport infrastructure has a triple threshold effect on rural poverty reduction,showing an "inverted U-shaped" trend,that is,from the initial negative impact to the positive impact,and then the positive impact gradually falls back;In the western region,transportation infrastructure has a double threshold effect on rural poverty reduction,and its positive impact on rural poverty reduction has always existed,and shows a non-linear increasing trend.(3)The empirical results based on Window-DEA Analysis model show that from the dynamic change based on time sequence,the “Technical Efficiency” at the national level shows a slow upward trend,the “Pure Technical Efficiency” has always remained at a high level,showing an obvious upward trend,and gradually approach 1 in most provinces,The change trend of the “Scale Efficiency” is similar to that of the “Technical Efficiency”.From the perspective of spatial distribution and trend evolution,most of the provinces and regions with high “Technical Efficiency” are in western region and central region,while the provinces and regions with low “Technical Efficiency” are mainly in eastern region.The spatial distribution of the “Technical Efficiency” has obvious regional differences,and also shows a certain phenomenon of spatial agglomeration.The annual “Technical Efficiency” in the western region is higher than that in the eastern region and central region.The “Pure Technical Efficiency” of all provinces was generally high,the spatial distribution was relatively balanced,and the gap of “Pure Technical Efficiency” between provinces gradually narrowed,the “Pure Technical Efficiency” difference between the eastern region and the central region was small,but both were higher than the western region.The spatial distribution of the“Scale Efficiency” was also similar to the “Technical Efficiency”.There is a positive correlation between the “Technical Efficiency” and the “Pure Technical Efficiency”,the “Technical Efficiency” and the “Scale Efficiency”,but the “Scale Efficiency”contributes more to the “Technical Efficiency”.Finally,based on the research conclusions,combined with the focus of China's agricultural and rural development and the development trend of transportation infrastructure at the present stage,this paper puts forward policy suggestions such as optimizing the regional development strategy of transportation infrastructure,stimulating the important role of transportation infrastructure in economic growth and labor employment,and giving full play to the boosting role of transportation infrastructure in Rural Revitalization.The innovations of this paper are as follows: First,it systematically analyzes the logical chain of the impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction.On the basis of existing research,this paper not only verifies that there is a direct impact path of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction,but also takes economic growth and income distribution as intermediary variables,integrates transportation infrastructure,economic growth,income distribution and rural poverty reduction into the a same system to verifies that there is a indirect impact path of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction.Secondly,it deeply identifies the nonlinear structural characteristics of the impact of transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction.Unlike most of the existing studies focus on the linear relationship between transportation infrastructure and rural poverty reduction,this paper uses the Threshold Effect model to analyze the nonlinear relationship between them and their constraint mechanism,enriching and expanding the relevant research on the impact of existing transportation infrastructure on rural poverty reduction.It is also conducive to improve the operability and pertinence of the research results as specific practice,especially as a reference for same policies.Thirdly,it comprehensively evaluates the rural poverty reduction efficiency of transportation infrastructure.Based on the characteristics of transportation infrastructure as working capital,this paper quantitatively measures its rural poverty reduction efficiency from the perspective of input-output,comprehensively and reasonably evaluates the rural poverty reduction effect of transportation infrastructure,and enriches the researches on the operation efficiency evaluation of existing transportation infrastructure.