Research on Government Logistics Subsidies for Poverty Alleviation with Non-uniform Distribution of Consumers

•This study analyzes the influence of agricultural product upstream logistics subsidy (PUS) and cold chain logistics project subsidy (CPS) for poverty alleviation on the competitiveness of agricultural products between impoverished and less impoverished general regions, and compares two types of subsidies.•Our analysis is based on a Hotelling model with an asymmetric triangular distribution of consumer density.•We compare the main decision-making and poverty alleviation effect of these two subsidies, and the type of subsidy that is selected by government under different circumstances.•The results of our model are consistent with the actual successful case decisions, which confirms the guiding value of our model analysis in practice.•Our analysis generates some interesting results and insights about the implications of the subsidies that can be used to offer practical guidelines to farmers and policymakers. We develop a Hotelling model with an asymmetric triangular distribution of consumer density to analyze the influence of the agricultural product upstream logistics subsidy (PUS) and the cold chain logistics project subsidy (CPS) for poverty alleviation on the competitiveness of agricultural products between impoverished and less impoverished general regions. When the government subsidies are strong enough, farmers' profits in the impoverished region may exceed those in the general region, or even lead to a loss of income for farmers in the general region. The government needs to carry out different logistics subsidies according to the different consumer sensitivity to price and to the logistics services of different agricultural products. The results and insights from our study could help policymakers and farmers to devise and select appropriate logistics subsidies.