Government Audits and Rural Revitalization: Causal Evidence From China

Urbanization is a long-term structural transformation occurring worldwide. Promoting coordinated urban-rural development and sustainable rural growth has become a central concern for the international community. Countries universally face challenges, such as the declining economic role of agriculture, inadequate rural infrastructure, and population outflow in the process of promoting rural transformation. In this context, government audits (GA) serve as an independent external oversight mechanism. They play a critical role in ensuring the effective implementation of rural revitalization policies and the proper use of related funds. This study evaluates the impact of GA on the performance of China’s rural revitalization initiative, focusing on the 2019 audit of rural revitalization. Using a double machine learning (DML) framework and panel data from 31 Chinese provinces (2016–2022), the study examines how GA affects rural revitalization outcomes. The findings show that: (1) GA significantly enhances the effectiveness of rural revitalization policies. After the audit implementation, rural revitalization indicators improved by an average of 0.4074 index points. This result is statistically significant at the 1% level. (2) GA improves the implementation process by reducing relative poverty, correcting inflated employment figures, and promoting the development of green finance. (3) The impact of GA varies across provinces, reflecting differences in financial supervision and marketization levels. The study also suggests measures to address the challenges identified in rural revitalization policy implementation. Future research should focus on improving the computational efficiency and scalability of machine learning algorithms for more refined policy simulations and evaluations. Additionally, an audit governance framework suitable for cross-country comparisons could be developed. This would help assess the adaptability of these mechanisms across different institutional contexts, particularly in developing countries with weak audit systems and significant rural governance challenges.