LAUSR

Abstract Since its economic reforms in 1978, China has seen nearly 700 million people lifted out of poverty. Although a great feat, millions of people, concentrated primarily in rural areas of the country, continue to experience extreme poverty. In order to address this issue, the Chinese government announced a strategy, called targeted poverty alleviation, to eliminate poverty by 2020. This strategy calls upon the cooperation of enterprises in this poverty alleviation effort. This study examines the China Philanthropy platform to illustrate how targeted poverty alleviation efforts have led to an innovative and successful e-commerce platform, which has shown positive effects on skills development, income, and resource allocation for workers and their families. The results indicate that this novel platform has strong potential to improve the professional skills of the participants and increase their family incomes. In turn, the families have more income to allocate to the education expenses of their children, an indicator of human capital accumulation. Policy implications are discussed.