Critical assessment indicators for measuring benefits of investment in rural infrastructure

Rural infrastructure is critical to promote agriculture development, rural economy development and alleviate poverty in China. However, there was few assessment indicators for rural infrastructure investment. The research aims to introduced a set of critical assessment indicators (CAIs) for objectively evaluating the benefits of investment in rural infrastructure in China. Research data was collected from a questionnaire survey to three groups of experts including government, professionals and business involving in China’s construction industry. The Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) was used to analyze the data, Based on the simulation results, the Fuzzy Set Theory was used in establishing CAIs. Eight indicators was selected as CAIs for assessing rural infrastructure investment in China. The analysis demonstrated that MCS can mitigate the deficiencies of limited samples from questionnaire responses while fuzzy set theory can take into account the fuzziness in questionnaire survey. The selected indicators are echoed by other researchers’ fragmentary study. The selected CAIs can help local government to make better decision when investing in rural infrastructure in China.