An assessment of the policy of having college graduates served as village officials

Abstract

A great deal of research has been conducted to the rural poverty alleviation and development in China; however, not much attention has been placed on the measurement of the practical effects of some specific rural development policies. This dissertation investigates the assessment of a special policy in China --College Graduates Serving as Village Officials policy, which leads a large number of university students to be village officers in order to promote rural development. Millions of graduates have been reached through this program at the grassroots level in rural China. It has been more than twenty years since the policy was first introduced; the actual effects of this policy have gradually emerged. So relying on a complete and abundant database, this article plans to use political economy theory and econometric statistics (DID model) to measure the concrete effects of the policy and analyse the specific aspects of the policy that are effective.