The Internet's Impact On Urban Residents' Consumption And The Regional Differences

Since the 21st century, the construction of Internet in China has developed rapidly and exercised a great influence on our social economy. Under the environment of the Internet, consumers' behavior have changed and presented new rules in Market transactions. The Internet has become the direct or indirect factors influencing residents' consumption. With the further development of the Internet, the impacts on residents' consumption will be even more profound. Under the background, the research on the Internet's impact on residents' consumption has important theoretical and practical significance. Therefore, this article probes into the Internet's impact on urban residents' consumption and the regional differences. The author expects that the article can enrich residents'consumption theory at the Internet age and provide reference or possible ways to expand the town residents' consumption and boost domestic demand.This paper firstly reviewed the domestic and foreign related literature which related to the residents' consumption and the Internet. On the basis of existing research, the article described the current development of the Internet and from the qualitative perspective analyzed the influence of Internet on the residents' consumption. Then the article selected urban Internet penetration as urban indicators of the Internet development level and added it to the urban residents consumption function. What's more, this paper analyzed the influence of the development of the Internet of our country on the urban residents consumption level empirically through the establishment of vector autoregressive model and using cointegration test methods. Further more, the paper used panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2010 to 2013, respectively, to set up the eastern, central and western panel data model. Through the model,the author researched the regional differences of the impact of Internet on urban residents' consumption.The results showed that: the Internet has a positive effect on urban residents' consumption. The development and popularization of it can promote the improvement of residents' consumption level. Internet penetration has a great influence on residents'consumption in east China, but the influences on central and western region are not obvious. The reasons for this phenomenon is that the Internet has external economy and Internet penetration in the east has higher quality. According to the research, the author obtained the following policy implications:(1) to enhance the level of Internet development in China. (2) to perfect the system of the network consumption so as to stimulate consumption. (3) to improve the related laws and regulations of the Internet and create a good consumption environment.