Can China Reduce Entrenched Poverty in Remote Ethnic Minority Regions? Lessons from Successful Poverty Alleviation in Tibetan Areas of China during 1998-2016

Abstract

In this paper Holcombe discusses lessons from successful poverty alleviation in Tibetan areas of China during 1998–2016. In the period between 1978 and 2015, the World Bank estimates that over 700 million people have been raised out of poverty based on a poverty line of $1.50 per capita. It also estimates that about 48 percent of residual poverty in China is located in ethnic minority areas where top-down macroeconomic policies to reduce poverty have been least effective and where strategies to target poor ethnic minority households with additional financial, technical, and other support were not successful in overcoming cultural and other barriers to greater income and food security.