Social Network,social Learning And Farmers' Internet Financial Exclusion

The internet which develops rapidly in recent years has not only provided a great convenience for people's lives but also injected new vitality into the development of economy and finance.Since the inclusive finance become a national strategy,it has been proposed clearly for two consecutive years in the Central Committee No.1 Document that the development of Internet Finance in rural areas should be guided,and financial institutions need to be encouraged to provide financial services adopting Internet Technology.As a result,there is no doubt that Internet Finance has become one of the most important ways to promote the development of inclusive finance.However,Internet Finance although can alleviate the financial exclusion brought by traditional financial institutions and reduce the financial services cost to a certain extent,farmers who are less educated and equipped with weak learning ability are unlikely to have access to financial services due to digital divide and technology gap,which as a result leads to Internet financial exclusion.Social network,as an important information source,continue to influence the farmers' financial behavior.On the one hand,a wide range of social networks can enhance the farmers' social support capacity so that the liquidity constraints can be alleviated by a series of financial behaviors such as borrowing.On the other hand,the strong social networks can not only provide help for farmers who suffer losses but also reduce their investment risk perception.In addition,social learning is also an important factor which can affect farmers' financial behaviors,because it can help farmers acquire internet financial knowledge,obtain relevant information,and improve farmers' ability of risk prevention and risk identification in learning process.Further,the target of reducing farmers' Internet financial exclusion could be reached.After systematically expounding the domestic and international literatures,starting from the perspective of social network and social learning,this paper is guided by the social capital theory,social learning theory,financial suppression and financial deepening theory.Social network is divided into online and offline social network.Firstly,based on 1,303 survey data regarding the Internet financial exclusion of farmers which was collected in the Shaanxi and Ningxia provinces from January to March 2018,factor analysis is used to analyze the three dimensions of offline social network in terms of family,village and business,and then the above three dimensions are transformed into an indicator reflecting offline social network and measure the level of social network integration.Secondly,the binary logit model is used to analyze the impacts that social networks and social learning has on farmers' Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment exclusion,Internet investment exclusion,Internet financing exclusion);the mediation effect test model of Bootstrap is used to test and analyze the mediating effect of social learning which plays a mediating role between social networks(online and offline)and farmers' Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment exclusion,Internet investment exclusion and Internet financing exclusion),and select the tool variables of social network and social learning,and use the instrumental variable method to carry out endogeneity test on the above empirical model.Finally,some conclusions were obtained:(1)Farmers are suffering Internet financial exclusion in different levels while Internet payment exclusion ratio is 35.3%,Internet investment exclusion ratio is 90.4%,and Internet financing exclusion is 83.5%.;(2)among the impacts that social networks have on Internet financial exclusion,online social network has a significant negative impact on three types of farmers' Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment exclusion,Internet investment exclusion,Internet financing exclusion)respectly,the offline social network has only a significant negative impact on the Internet payment exclusion of farmers,but has no significant impact on Internet investment exclusion and Internet financing exclusion;(3)among the impacts that social learning has on Internet financial exclusion,social learning has a significant negative impact on three types of farmers' Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment,Internet investment,Internet financing exclusion);(4)among the mediating effects of social learning,social learning plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between online social network and two Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment exclusion,Internet investment exclusion)respectly.Social learning plays a full mediating role in the relationships between offline social network and two Internet financial exclusion(Internet payment exclusion,Internet investment exclusion)respectly;(5)In addition to the core independent variables(social network,social learning),the age,education level,and trust in Internet finance of the individual characteristics of farmers will also have different degrees of impact on Internet financial exclusion.According to the research conclusions,in order to reduce the degree of Internet financial exclusion of farmers and promote the participation of farmers in the Internet financial market,this paper proposes to improve the quality of farmers' comprehensive social network and enhance the social learning ability of farmers from both online and offline aspects.And give full play to the policy recommendations of social learning in the social network to ease the intermediary role of farmers in the Internet financial exclusion relationship.