Research On The Influence Of Digital Inclusive Finance On The Debt Behavior Of Rural Households

The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is a major strategic deployment made at the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC),which points out the direction and path for promoting agricultural and rural modernization.In 2021,the No.1 document of the central government proposed for the first time the development of rural digital inclusive finance.In terms of solving the financing difficulties and high financing costs of rural residents,digital inclusive finance is expected to be highly expected.In recent years,the rapid development of digital inclusive finance has provided a favorable opportunity to promote the reform of rural financial market and improve the credit availability of rural residents.In the rural financial market,rural households are important microeconomic subjects,and the deep integration of digital technology and inclusive finance will have an important impact on household economic behavior.Exploring the impact of digital inclusive finance on the debt behavior of rural households is of great significance for improving the rural financial system and promoting the benign development of rural digital inclusive finance.Based on the above background,this paper systematically combs the existing research at home and abroad,puts forward three hypotheses of the research content of this paper,and constructs the micro-panel data at the household level based on the matching between the Digital Inclusive Finance Development Index of Peking University and the China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)data from 2015 to2019.The fixed effect model is used to empirically test the impact of digital inclusive finance on the debt behavior of rural households.The results show that:(1)Digital inclusive finance can significantly promote the debt decision and debt level of rural households,and the one-period lagged debt behavior of households will inhibit the debt behavior of the current period,which leads to the one-period lagged development index of digital inclusive finance has an inhibitory effect on the debt behavior of rural households.(2)The analysis of the impact of rural household debt channels shows that digital inclusive finance alleviates financial exclusion,promotes the possibility of rural households obtaining loans through formal financial institutions,and has a certain substitution effect on private lending and online lending.(3)From the perspective of lending purposes,digital inclusive finance stimulates the generation of consumer credit by improving credit supply,and promotes the increase of living liabilities such as agricultural liabilities,housing liabilities,and medical education.The findings of this paper enrich the relevant research in the field of digital inclusive finance and household debt behavior,and help to understand the role of digital inclusive finance development in boosting household debt level and changing the borrowing structure of rural residents.In addition,in the face of the debt accumulation of the household sector and the endless financial innovation,how to prevent financial risks and guide rural digital inclusive finance to better serve agriculture,rural areas and farmers is of great significance.