数字金融、数字鸿沟与多维贫困

Digital Finance,Digital Divide,and Multidimensional Poverty

以互联网为基础的第三次技术革命,推动了数字金融的发展,对居民经济行为的影响巨大,因而也可能具有减贫作用。本文首次利用中国数字普惠金融发展指数和中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)的匹配数据,通过克服内生性的工具变量估计,探讨了数字经济发展对家庭多维贫困的影响。然而,与预期不同,本文的初步研究发现数字金融发展提升了贫困发生的概率,也加深了多维贫困的程度,且影响逐年增大。不过,进一步研究表明,数字金融发展可能存在结构性问题:数字金融发展给能够接触到互联网的居民带来便利以及机会,挤占了未能接触到互联网的居民原先所可能获得的资源,这种数字鸿沟使得位于贫困线附近和贫困线以下的居民由于数字金融的发展而愈加贫困。观察背后机制发现,数字金融发展主要导致了面临数字劣势的贫困居民失业概率的提升。因此,在推进数字金融发展的同时,应着力提高金融服务的覆盖率和可得性,尤其对于农村的贫困人口而言,积极应对数字经济对就业市场的挑战,引导其成为脱贫攻坚的重要支撑。

The Internet-based technological revolution is promoting the development of digital finance,which has a great impact on residents’ economic behavior and may have a poverty reduction effect. Based on the matching data of China Digital Inclusive Financial Index and China Family Panel Studies( CFPS),this paper first explores the impact of digital economic development on multidimensional poverty by instrumented variable overcoming endogenous variables. The study first shows that the development of digital finance has increased the probability of poverty and deepened the extent of multidimensional poverty and the impact grows larger every year,which is contrary to the expectations. Further research finds that there may be structural problems in the development of digital finance. Specifically,the development of digital finance has brought convenience and opportunities for residents who have access to the Internet,and crowded out the resources of the residents who have no such access,which leads to a digital divide between residents. With the development of digital finance,this digital divide makes residents near and below the poverty line even poorer. By examining the mechanisms behind it,we find that the development of digital finance has mainly raised the unemployment probability of poor residents in digital disadvantage. Therefore,while promoting the development of digital finance,the government should focus on improving the coverage and availability of financial services,especially for the rural poor,coping with the challenges of the digital economy to the job market,and guiding it to become an important support for poverty alleviation.