The Impact Of Digital Finance On Rural Residents’ Consumption

In recent years,the final consumption rate of Chinese residents is much lower than the world average level,and the high-quality economic development is faced with the problem of insufficient domestic demand.China’s rural market contains huge consumption potential and will become an important focus to stimulate domestic consumption.However,due to the low disposable income of rural residents and serious liquidity constraints in rural consumption market,it is still difficult to boost rural consumption.With the continuous breakthrough of the Internet and big data technology,China’s digital finance has achieved leapfrog development,which has brought a new breakthrough for boosting rural consumption.Studying the specific impact of digital finance on rural residents’ consumption is of great significance for tapping rural consumption potential and promoting high-quality economic development.This paper takes 21 prefecture-level cities in Sichuan Province and 361 rural household samples obtained by investigation as research objects,and analyzes the impact of digital finance on the consumption level and consumption structure of rural residents from the two levels of prefecture-level cities and households.First,based on relevant theories,the paper analyzes the mechanism of digital finance affecting rural residents’ consumption,and builds the research framework of this paper.Secondly,it makes a descriptive statistical analysis of digital finance and rural residents’ consumption status in Sichuan Province.Then,the paper analyzes the dynamic impact of digital finance development on rural residents’ consumption level and consumption structure from the prefecture-level city level in Sichuan Province.Finally,the paper examines the effects and mechanisms of digital finance on total household consumption and consumption structure from the perspective of rural households,and carries out heterogeneity analysis.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)At the prefecture-level city level,there is a two-way granger causality between digital finance and rural residents’ consumption level,and between digital finance and rural residents’ consumption structure;The development of digital finance can promote the growth of rural residents’ consumption and the upgrading of consumption structure in both short and long term,but the short-term effect is stronger than the long-term effect;The development of digital finance has made a great contribution to the upgrading of rural residents’ consumption level and consumption structure,and it is getting stronger and stronger with the passage of time.(2)At the level of rural households,the use of digital finance can significantly promote the improvement of rural households’ consumption level and the upgrading of consumption structure;The analysis of the mechanism of action finds that the use of digital finance can promote the improvement of consumption level and the upgrading of consumption structure by easing liquidity constraints and increasing household income;Heterogeneity analysis shows that the use of digital finance has a greater promoting effect on the improvement of rural residents’ consumption level and the upgrading of consumption structure in higher-age families and low-income families.Based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations:(1)Accelerate the construction of digital financial infrastructure in rural areas and make up for the shortcomings of rural digital infrastructure.(2)Strengthen the publicity of financial knowledge and improve the digital financial literacy of rural residents.(3)Strengthen the popularization of digital finance in less developed areas,and increase the policy preference for less developed areas.(4)Improve the digital financial risk prevention and control mechanism.