The Impact Of Digital Inclusive Finance On The Income Gap Between Urban And Rural Areas

The problem of urban-rural income gap in China has a long history.The high urban-rural income gap has hindered the realization of high-quality development goals in China.Narrowing the urban-rural income gap and building a more reasonable income distribution pattern are the top priorities of current economic development.The emergence of digital inclusive finance in recent years provides a new perspective for finance to help convergence of urban-rural income gap.Whether digital inclusive finance has an impact on the urban-rural income gap,this paper conducts a series of studies on this issue.First of all,this paper combs the current situation of digital inclusive finance and urban-rural income gap in China.The development of digital inclusive finance in China has roughly gone through three stages: micro credit,inclusive finance and digital inclusive finance.In terms of urban-rural income gap,China’s Gini coefficient has been maintained at a high level,which has caused a certain negative impact on the health and stability of the economy and society.Then it introduces the relevant theoretical basis and summarizes the literature related to digital inclusive finance and urban-rural income gap of domestic and foreign scholars,and then theoretically studies the impact of digital inclusive finance on urban-rural income gap.Previous studies have shown that the impact of traditional finance on urban-rural income gap is mainly divided into poverty alleviation effect of narrowing income gap and threshold effect and unbalanced effect of expanding income gap.The threshold effect and unbalanced effect are mainly caused by financial exclusion.On the one hand,digital inclusive finance can play a more accurate role in poverty alleviation and improve the convergence effect with the help of digital technology.On the other hand,it can alleviate financial exclusion,thereby weakening the threshold effect and the unbalanced effect,and thus achieving the effect of narrowing the urban-rural income gap.However,based on China’s urban-rural dual economic structure,the introduction of digital technology will inevitably face the digital divide,which is reflected in the convergence effect of digital inclusive finance on urban-rural income gap.In addition,the use of digital inclusive finance will lead to the flow of technology,knowledge and human capital related to it among regions,resulting in a certain spatial spillover effect.After clarifying the theoretical mechanism of the impact of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap,this paper then verifies it through empirical analysis.In terms of data selection,most existing studies select provincial panel data.Considering the sample size and more accurate verification of its spatial spillover effect,this paper selects panel data from 201 prefecture level cities nationwide from2013 to 2019 for research.Firstly,the convergence effect of digital inclusive finance on urban-rural income gap is studied by using fixed effect panel regression model from the perspective of national prefecture level cities.Then verify its threshold effect.The existing research mostly selects single variables such as urbanization rate,economic development level,digital inclusive financial index as threshold variables,which cannot accurately measure financial exclusion and digital divide.Based on the causes and connotation of financial exclusion and digital divide,this paper selects financial threshold,income threshold,access threshold and education threshold to systematically verify the threshold effect.Finally,through the spatial Dubin model,it is confirmed that digital inclusive finance has a positive spatial spillover effect on the urban-rural income gap.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,the development of digital inclusive finance helps to narrow the urban-rural income gap.Second,the threshold effect regression results show that digital inclusive finance can effectively alleviate the financial threshold caused by financial exclusion compared with traditional finance,but the income threshold still exists.After the per capita disposable income of rural households has crossed the threshold,the convergence effect of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap has been enhanced.With the development of China’s digital infrastructure construction,the threshold of digital access caused by the digital gap has basically disappeared,but the threshold of application capability still exists.The convergence effect of digital inclusive finance on urban-rural income gap has been enhanced after the education investment has crossed the thresholdThird,the spatial effect regression results show that there is a positive spatial spillover effect of digital inclusive finance on the convergence of urban-rural income gap.