Alleviating Poverty or Discontent: Impact of Social Assistance on Chinese Citizens’ Views of Government

This study provides one of the first empirical tests on the political impact of China’s anti-poverty cash transfer program: Dibao. Using the China Family Panel Study 2010 dataset and a propensity score matching method, we examined whether and how much the Dibao benefits have impacted recipients’ assessment of local government performance. To explore the heterogeneity effect of Dibao, we conducted the analysis in urban and rural samples respectively. Results show that receiving the Dibao benefit had a significant and positive impact on citizens’ assessment of local government in China. Nonetheless, the subsample results suggest that the positive and significant impact of Dibao benefits might be driven mainly by the rural sample. Overall, it implies that China’s Dibao policy has achieved a mixed success in alleviating discontent and boosting popular support for the government.Peer reviewe