Impact Of ICT Use On Tibetan Herders’ Income

Income inequality and poverty are undoubtedly potential economic and social risks faced by many countries.Since the reform and opening up,farmers’ income has grown rapidly in China.The income inequality between Chinese urban and rural residents is gradually narrowing,but the income disparity among rural residents is rapidly expanding,leading to a more serious relative poverty problem.As a typical poor area,Tibet was not only a key target for poverty alleviation,but also an important barrier for national security.Improving herders’ living conditions and increasing their income have become an urgent task.Previous studies have shown that information and communication technology(ICT)has greatly contributed to agricultural production and poverty reduction.Those studies have also confirmed a positive role of ICT in agricultural profit,non-farm employment and household income.However,there are still many theoretical and practical questions to answer.For example,can ICT adoption boost herders’ income and narrow income disparity?What are the mechanisms that ICT affects income level and income disparity? To fill the gaps in the existing research and solve realistic problems in Tibet,this paper theoretically and empirically analyzed the impacts of ICT adoption on herders’ income.This study attempted to provide theoretical support and practical guidance to alleviate relative poverty,promote development of pastoral areas,and assist rural revitalization in Tibet.Focusing the sample on Tibetan pastoral areas,this study conducted field research on 216 pastoral households in four regions of Tibet,namely,Nagqu,Shigatse,Linzhi,and Chamdo,based on grassland types and regional environmental characteristics,and obtained a total of 608 valid samples of pastoral labor.Based on the survey sample,this study took smartphone use as an example of ICT and explored the impact of ICT adoption on herders’ income level and income disparity.Firstly,based on endogenous growth theory,information asymmetry theory and farmers’ economic behavior theory,this paper analyzes how ICT use affects herdsmen’s income from factor level,market information level and herdsman behavior level respectively.Secondly,this paper adopted a treatment effect model(TEM)to address the endogeneity problem caused by self-selection bias.The impacts of ICT adoption on herders’ income was empirically examined,and the average treatment effect(ATE)was calculated.Second,the impact of ICT adoption on herders’ income disparity was analyzed,and the heterogeneous effects of ICT on herders’ income increase were explored.The overall impact,regional differences,and return differences were evaluated using a recentered influence function(RIF)regression and an unconditional quantile regression(UQR).The main conclusions were:(1)Overall,ICT use mainly increased the income level of herders by increasing farm income and off-farm income,and ICT use had a greater impact on off-farm income.ICT use increased herders’ total income,farm income and non-farm income by 28.57%,56.09% and 42.42% respectively;(2)The effects of ICT use on farming and animal husbandry were different.ICT use affects pastoralist agricultural income by affecting factor allocation and product markets.In the early stage of informatization development,ICT use had a positive effect on the caterpillar fungus income,which required less labor input,but it had a negative effect on livestock production.ICT can effectively promote off-farm employment of herders through increasing job opportunities,working hours,and average monthly wages;(3)ICT adoption helped narrow income disparity of herders and alleviate the “Matthew effect”—the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.In addition,the impacts of ICT use on herders’ income disparity showed some regional and return differences.ICT has the greatest effect on herders’ income in the 10 th quantile and tends to decrease as the quantile increases.Based on the research findings,this paper proposed the following policy implications:(1)Information infrastructure in the pastoral areas need to be further improved to increase the effective utilization of ICT;(2)The off-farm industries need to be developed to increase employment channels in the pastoral areas;(3)Optimize the allocation of production factors through joint households,cooperatives and other business models;(4)Herders need to be encouraged to actively participate in income-generating activities and have more income sources.