China’s poverty alleviation policy promoted ecological-economic collaborative development: evidence from poverty-stricken counties on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

ABSTRACT Owing to ecological degradation and fragility, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is vulnerable to economic development and anthropogenic activities. Therefore, studying the impact of eliminating extreme poverty on the ecological environment is important. In this study, based on the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and GDP data of poverty-stricken counties on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 2011–2019, the model of Economic-Ecological Development Coordination Degree (EEDCD) was constructed, and the difference-in-differences (DID) method was used to verify the impact of policy on EEDCD. The results are as follows: The poverty alleviation policy has considerably improved the EEDCD of counties on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The coefficients of the core explanatory variables remained significantly positive throughout the inclusion of the control variables. To some extent, the above results reflect the robustness of the model results and demonstrate the change in EEDCD due to the implementation of the poverty alleviation policy. After implementing the poverty alleviation policy, the EEDCD of poverty-stricken counties on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau increased by approximately 66%. Based on the analysis of socioeconomic-related factors by geographic detector, it was found that population density changes, industrial structure changes, and fiscal expenditure had strong explanatory power for EEDCD change.