The effects of rural education on poverty in China: a spatial econometric perspective.

Poverty alleviation has attracted extensive attention worldwide. This paper investigated the spatial agglomeration effect and dynamics driving rural education levels (namely, primary education, junior secondary education, and senior secondary education) and rural poverty in 27 provinces of China in 2010-2017. The results of a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model revealed that different education levels have distinct effects on rural poverty, and the impact of compulsory education on rural poverty is greater than that of senior secondary education. We further found that rural poverty in a region is clearly not only internally driven but also impacted by the poverty rate in the surrounding provinces, suggesting that regional poverty alleviation policies should combine regional education differences and learn from poverty alleviation through education experience in surrounding areas. Thus, the findings established in this paper have significant implications for targeted poverty alleviation measures in China by improving education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]