Abstract:

Poverty reduction is one of the primary goals of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations. Clarifying how inclusive finance alleviates rural poverty and impacts rural development can provide new perspectives and avenues for alleviating rural poverty. Based on the sustainable livelihood analysis framework, this study explored the poverty reduction mechanism of rural inclusive finance and integrated multi-source data and methods to conduct a systematic empirical test on the poverty reduction effect, pathways, and heterogeneity of rural inclusive finance. The results indicate that rural inclusive finance plays a direct and an indirect role in reducing poverty. According to the three-dimensional poverty standard, the marginal impact of rural inclusive finance is 67.5%, and the poverty reduction effect is stable. Rural inclusive finance has a variable poverty reduction effect based on group differences, such as poverty degree, educational level, and type of poverty. There is a relatively small effect of poverty reduction on the deeply impoverished groups and the poor with low education levels, but a mitigation effect on income, employment, health, and living standards poverty. For the purpose of deepening, extending, and sustaining the reduction of rural poverty through inclusive finance, it would be necessary to scientifically identify the coupling process between rural inclusive finance and poor groups/regions and to determine and develop the differentiated supply of inclusive finance and an in-depth connection with rural education.

Key words: rural multidimensional poverty, inclusive finance, effect of poverty reduction, heterogeneity