大学生村官政策对农村收入差距的影响研究 ——基于2015年和2017年中国家庭大数据 1324个村社的实证分析

大学生村官作为推动农村发展的重要基层治理力量,在农村集体经济发展、农户增收与脱贫攻坚等方面发挥了重要作用。然而,在新形势下,大学生村官政策是否有助于农村实现共同富裕有待验证。文章基于2015年和2017年"中国家庭大数据库"(CFD)数据,使用固定效应模型实证检验了大学生村官政策对农村收入差距的影响。结果表明:大学生村官促进了农民收入增加,缩小了农村基尼系数,转移性收入、财产性收入和工资性收入的增加构成了大学生村官缩小农村收入差距的主要来源。文章采取替换核心解释变量、被解释变量、替换控制变量与更换估计模型(DID)等方法进行稳健性检验,并采用IV模型克服内生性问题后,结论仍稳健。进一步机制验证发现,大学生村官可通过提升"社会保障力度"与"社会治理水平"的中介路径来调节收入再分配,缩小农村收入差距。大学生村官政策效果存在异质性,其对资本禀赋较强地区(东中部、非贫困村与村支书学历高中以上)的收入差距缩小作用更加明显。可见,大学生村官政策能促进农村地区的共同富裕。政府应做好大学生村官政策与社会保障、社会治理水平建设政策的有机衔接,促使大学生村官更好发挥自身人力资本优势。同时,政府需因地制宜地实施差异化的制度安排,以确保政策效果的普惠性,助力农村共同富裕的实现。

Does College Graduates Serving as Village Officers Policy Narrowed the Income Gap in Rural Areas: Based on Empirical Analysis of 1324 Villages Chinese Family Database in 2015 and 2017

In recent years, China's rural development has undergone dramatic changes, with rapid growth in farm household income and a significant reduction in poverty to near zero. The reason for this tremendous achievement is that the Chinese government has not only focused on external support interventions, but also, and more importantly, has established an endogenous and long-term mechanism to improve grassroots governance. The policy of College Graduates Serving as Village Officers (CGVOs) is a typical example of the government's efforts to address the chronic shortage of talent in rural areas by directing high-quality human resources to rural grassroots areas. CGVOs is a typical practice that selects college graduates to serve as assistants to village chiefs (village clerks) to enhance the human capital of the grassroots governance force and promote the growth of rural collective economy, increasing farmers' income and tackling poverty. However, in the new historical period of the Chinese government proposes rural revitalization to achieve common prosperity, it is still essential to verify whether the policy of CGVOs has positively promoted the common prosperity for the rural areas, because the Chinese government is committed to promoting rural revitalization and achieving common prosperity. The article focuses on how the policy of CGVOs reduces rural income disparity, and establishes a theoretical framework: CGVOs join the village community and help rural disadvantaged groups, thereby improving income redistribution and reducing rural income disparity. The article theoretically and empirically analyzes the impact of CGVOs on rural income disparity with China Family Database (CFD) data in 2015 and 2017. The results show as follows: The policy of CGVOs promotes farmers’ income growth, narrows rural Gini Index. Transfer income, property income and wage income are the main sources that CGVOs help narrow rural income gap. The research conclusions keep consistent after a series of robustness tests, including replacing core explanatory variables, explained variables, control variables, and using other econometric models (Difference-in-Difference). In addition, the findings remain robust after further addressing possible endogeneity issues by using an appropriate instrumental variable, the presence of officials at the vice department level or above in the areas where the village is located. Further mechanistic studies find that:(1) CGVOs adjust income redistribution and narrow rural income gap by improving social security and governance; Their intermediation effects are 6.6%;(2) There is heterogeneity in the effects of CGVOs, which is stronger in regions with more endowment (eastern and central regions, non-poor villages, village director with high-school or above education). A better organic connection between CGVOs and social security and social governance level building policies, and the implementation of differentiated institutional arrangements according to local conditions, which can better enable CGVO to exert its influence in rural areas. It can be seen that the policy of CGVOs can promote common affluence in rural areas. The government and society should provide a good policy support system for CGVOs so that CGVOs can leverage human resource and help realize common prosperity in rural areas.