Are Farmer Cooperatives Effective Organizations for Poverty

Based on the organizational characteristics of farmers' cooperatives, this paper analyzes the mechanism by which poor households join cooperatives to improve their economic conditions and life satisfaction. Then, using the data of 3216 poor households from the 2017 "Accurate Poverty Alleviation and Accurate Poverty Alleviation 100 Villages Survey", the influence of poor households joining cooperatives on their income and life satisfaction is estimated by using an extended regression model that can handle endogenous nature. The results show that joining cooperatives can increase the annual per capita net income of poor households by 872 yuan, and has a greater effect on the income of actual poor households. Joining cooperatives can significantly improve the life satisfaction of poor households, and has a stronger effect on the actual poor households. Social interaction is an intermediary variable affecting the life satisfaction of poor households, which can explain 17.37 of the impact of joining cooperatives on the life satisfaction of poor households. Therefore, policy-making should pay more attention to the multi-dimensional poverty benefit of farmer cooperatives.