Aspiration and poverty in an asymmetric information game: a case study of Southern Xinjiang
China Agricultural Economic Review
ISSN: 1756-137X
Article publication date: 20 November 2020
Issue publication date: 12 January 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reveal the internal mechanism of the deviation of targeted poverty alleviation under the condition of asymmetric information.
Design/methodology/approach
Introducing a traditional signaling game theory model with dynamic asymmetric information, this study uses a dataset covering 813 poor households from Southern Xinjiang, China, to theoretically and empirically study the effect of aspiration of the poor households on poverty alleviation.
Findings
First, there exists asymmetric information between the poor households and village leaders. Second, the “short, arbitrary and fast” poverty alleviation approach may quickly pull people out of poverty, but it may also nurture a dependency culture where poor households lose their aspiration and ability to escape poverty through their own efforts. Third, due to long lasting universal state support, poor households in the national designated poor counties are less able and ambitious to escape poverty by themselves than their counterparts living in the national nondesignated areas.
Originality/value
The research results show that pro-poor development policies should be upheld to improve the residual utility that can benefit all households as a result of the poverty alleviation campaign. Relevant policy recommendations are made for China's continuous effort to fight relative poverty beyond 2020.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the financial support of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (2018CDYJSY0055), the national key project of the Social Science Foundation of China (18ZDA005) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71673033), as well as the Chinese Ministry of Education (2020CDJSK02ZH02). They thank the participants at the Chinese Economists Society (CES) 2018 North America Conference for their helpful comments and suggestions but remain responsible for any omission or error herein.
Citation
Yao, S. and Wang, J. (2021), "Aspiration and poverty in an asymmetric information game: a case study of Southern Xinjiang", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 193-210. https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-06-2020-0115
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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