| Under the background of the world economic slowdown and counter-globalization tide,the contribution rate of consumption to China’s economic growth has steadily increased.From 2012 to 2019,the contribution rate of consumption to China’s economic growth increased from 55.4%to 58.6%.Consumption has gradually become an important engine of China’s economic growth.Expanding household consumption demand and promoting the upgrading of consumption structure have become an important way to stabilize economic growth and adjust economic structure in China.In 2018,the State Council of the CPC Central Committee issued "Several Opinions on Perfecting the Mechanism of Promoting Consumption to Further Stimulate Residents’ Consumption Potential",which clearly pointed out that enhancing the basic role of consumption in economic development is very important for building an economic development mode that is in line with China’s long-term strategic interests.How to cultivate and expand the consumption power and further improve the pulling function of consumption on economy has become a hot topic in academic and industry field.At the same time,with the rapid rise of China’s economy and the increasing perfection of capital market,the scale of residents’ wealth and asset is constantly rising.Household asset allocation was mainly based on fixed assets such as real estates and vehicles,and has entered the inflection point of accelerating the allocation of risky financial assets.Households have began to invest in all kinds of risky financial assets for values’ maintenance and appreciation.The ownership rate of risky financial assets in households has been increasing.Moreover,the types of financial assets held by households have also increased year by year,and household portfolio structure has shown a trend of decentralization and diversification.How to optimize portfolio to realize wealth accumulation has become the primary focus of current households.With the continuous innovation of finance and technology,digital finance relying on big data and cloud computing has developed rapidly with the characteristics of low cost,high efficiency and wide coverage.The rapid development of digital finance has solved the problem of asymmetric information and high transaction cost of traditional banks.It not only provides households with loose financing channels and innovative financial services,but also meets the extensive financial needs of Chinese households,thus promoting household consumption environment effectively,improving household consumption habits indirectly,and influencing household investment and consumption behavior.In the existing literature,in terms of the impact of digital finance on household financial asset allocation,domestic scholars mainly use The Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index to study the impact of digital finance on household risk financial market participation,while few literatures study the impact of digital finance on household portfolio balance,diversity and efficiency.In addition,due to the limitation of micro-data,most existing literatures only study the impact of stock assets and housing assets on household consumption,only considering the wealth effect of financial assets,ignoring the impact of asset overall allocation on household consumption.Given all this,this paper combines the existing investment and consumption theory to study the influence of digital finance on household financial asset allocation and consumption.Specifically,based on the viewpoint of utility theory and the analysis framework of asset allocation,this paper deduces the theoretical model of the influence of digital finance on household financial asset allocation firstly.Then,the instrumental variable method(IV)and the fixed effect model are used to test the optimization effect of digital finance on household financial asset allocation empirically.Secondly,combined with permanent income theory,rational expectation theory and precautionary saving theory,this paper analyzes the impact of household financial asset allocation on consumption.Then,based on the panel data of CHFS2017 and CHFS2019,it makes an empirical test by using Heckman Selection Model and Instrumental Variable Method(IV),and conducts heterogeneity analysis from the perspectives of income level,urban and rural areas,and debt level.Thirdly,it explores the typical facts and mechanism of digital finance’s influence on household consumption,and conducts a concrete analysis from new perspectives such as E-banking and service consumption.Finally,this paper measures the intermediary effect of financial asset allocation between digital finance and household consumption.Based on the research of this paper,it is expected to theoretically make up for the deficiency of related research.In practice,it is expected to provide policy basis for controlling financial risks,alleviating the gap between the rich and the poor,improving people’s well-being and promoting social equity.Furthermore,relevant conclusions are helpful to build healthy financial environment which is conducive to releasing the domestic demand potential,steadily improve residents’ consumption level,strengthen the basic role of consumption in economic development,and realize the goals of domestic and international double circulation.This paper is divided into eight chapters: Chapter One is the introduction.The second chapter is literature review.The third chapter is the description and analysis of digital finance,household financial asset allocation and consumption.Chapters four to seven mainly focus on empirical analysis.Chapter four explores the influence of digital finance on household financial asset allocation.The fifth chapter studies the impact of household portfolio balance and diversity on consumption.The sixth chapter takes household portfolio efficiency as an explanatory variable to study the influence of financial asset allocation behavior on household consumption.Chapter seven empirically analyzes the impact of digital finance on consumption level and structure.Chapter eight are conclusions and policy recommendations.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Digital finance has significantly optimized household financial asset allocation.Specifically,digital finance has promoted households’ participation in risk financial market,then improved household portfolio balance,household portfolio diversity and household portfolio efficiency.Mechanism analysis shows that digital finance mainly optimizes household financial asset allocation by enriching financial knowledge,increasing property income and easing liquidity constraints.Heterogeneity analysis shows that digital finance plays a more significant role in optimizing financial asset allocation for residents in eastern and urban areas,residents with higher education level,higher financial knowledge level,lower income level and lower debt level.(2)Portfolio balance and portfolio diversity can significantly stimulate household consumption.Furthermore,the positive impact is more significant for low-income households,rural households and households with debt.Robustness tests such as Instrumental Variable Method(IV),changing database and changing explained variables all support the above conclusions.(3)Taking sharpe ratio and sortino ratio as proxy variables respectively,it is found that household portfolio efficiency can significantly stimulate consumption and optimize consumption structure by increasing household property income and reducing household uncertainty.Compared to households with risk averse and high liquidity constraints,living in western regions,and not participating in digital finance,household portfolio efficiency can stimulate the consumption of households with risk appetite and low liquidity constraints,living in eastern and central regions,and participating in digital finance more significantly.(4)Finally,digital finance can dramatically reduce household saving rate,improve household consumption level and promote household consumption upgrade.Further analysis shows that E-banking can stimulate household consumption through facilitating payment,reducing transaction costs and improving financial asset allocation diversity.Moreover,the impact of E-banking on household consumption is obviously different among different risk attitudes,financial literacy,income levels and areas.In addition,it is found that digital finance can apparently stimulate household service consumption and increase the proportion of service expenditure to total expenditure.In addition,the positive impact on sub-items of service consumption such as living service,transportation and communication,education and training,culture and entertainment and tourism is more significant.The policy recommendations of this paper are as follows: First,we should further consolidate the basic digital financial services,promote the development of digital finance,and increase household participation in digital finance.Second,we should concern about heterogeneous consumer behavior,improve the policy accuracy,and promote policies to vulnerable groups.Third,financial institutions are supposed to innovate new business and more financial products to meet the needs of household wealth management,satisfy residents’ reasonable individualized financial needs,and improve household financial asset allocation efficiency.Fourth,the government should establish a more perfect digital financial supervision system,further standardize regulations and institutional framework,formulate an effective risk warning system and information disclosure system,protect users’ information security and legitimate interests,and reduce residents’ concerns about digital finance and risk financial assets. |
