Both the world economy and the chinese economy are facing unprecedented pressures and opportunities.On the one hand,the problems caused by the impact of the 2008 financial crisis and the growth of the long-term “extensive economy” have put tremendous pressure on China’s current economic development: investment-led,export-driven economy has become unsustainable.The mode of economic growth is in urgent need of a shift towards consumption-driven.On the other hand,the internet economy has entered a stage of rapid development.By the end of 2017,the number of internet users in China had reached 772 million,and the internet penetration rate had reached 55.8%.The popularity of the internet has greatly stimulated the development of e-commerce and internet finance,and the internet economy has gradually penetrated into all aspects of social and economic life.Then,is the development of the internet effectively promoting the household consumption of chinese residents,or is it inhibiting household consumption to a certain extent? There are still many differences and disputes among ordinary residents,entrepreneurs,economists and government authorities on this issue.Although there are many economic studies on consumption at present,there is still a lack of classical research on the internet for consumption.Most of the studies remain at the theoretical level,lacking the support of empirical data.There are only a few empirical studies on the use of single indicators to measure the use of the internet.The conclusions of the study are not convincing enough.Obviously,further in-depth study of this issue is not only of theoretical significance,but also of great practical significance.On the basis of reviewing the relevant literatures of the predecessors,this paper firstly sorts out the basic mechanism of the internet to influence household consumption by expanding information channels,reducing consumption restrictions,and enhancing consumption incentives,and then focusing on the China Family Panel Studies based on the two issues in 2014 and 2016.Empirical results show that the use of the internet can significantly improve household consumption.After adding a series of control variables,considering time and regional differences,or changing the measurement methods of the main explanatory variables,this promotion still exists.After introducing instrumental variables to overcome potential endogenous problems,the positive effect is more significant.In order to study the problem more comprehensively,in addition to considering the internet use of financial decision-makers and the proportion of household internet access,this paper further adds the internet use of spouses of financial decision-makers to supplement the robustness analysis,and more fully considers the impact of household members’ internet use on household consumption,so as to make the conclusion more reliable.In terms of heterogeneity,the impact of internet use on health care consumption,durable goods consumption and housing consumption in household consumption classification is not obvious,but it has a significant role in promoting food and clothing consumption,communication consumption and cultural and entertainment consumption,and has the greatest impact on communication expenditure.According to the classification of urban and rural areas,the use of the internet has a significant impact on both urban and rural residents,but the impact on the city is greater than that on the countryside;according to the gender classification of financial decision makers,the positive role of female financial decision makers in promoting household consumption is greater than that of the whole sample,while the positive role of male financial decision makers in using the internet for household consumption is not significant;from the perspective of using tools,mobile internet access is more conducive to household consumption than computer internet access.Quantile regression results show that with the improvement of household consumption level,the positive role played by the internet has been weakening.The above results show that the internet has an important impact on household consumption.Therefore,the government should attach importance to the construction and development of the internet,ensure infrastructure construction,strengthen the universal education of the internet,and actively issue relevant policy documents to promote the sound development of the internet platform.The innovation of this paper is to take the family as the perspective,in addition to using the traditional personal situation as the representative of family members,and further consider the spouse’s internet use in the robustness test to supplement the financial decision-makers’ internet use,in order to consider the problem more comprehensively,and more accurately reflects the impact of the use of the internet on household consumption on a household basis.In terms of empirical methods,this paper uses a variety of main explanatory variables to measure,as well as considering endogeneity and robustness issues,and then focuses on heterogeneity by means of subsamples and quantiles.Finally,this study also conducts an empirical study on some impact mechanism paths,and a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the research topic internet on household consumption was made for a comprehensive supplement.In this paper,CFPS micro-database is used to study the internet and household consumption problem based on the latest data of 16 years.Data updating and research methods are supplemented in a few existing empirical studies on this issue in China. |