数字金融助推了家庭债务风险吗?——基于CFPS的微观证据

Does Digital Finance Boost Household Debt Risk?——Micro Evidence Based on CFPS

本文以CFPS数据库2012—2020年五次抽样数据为样本,采用中介效应模型,考察数字金融对中国家庭债务风险的作用机理。结果发现,第一,数字渗透和金融自由化等市场因素导致过度授信和过度借贷,破坏了家庭负债的稳定性和可持续性;第二,数字金融使用广度和金融数字化程度的提升推动了家庭负债上升,而数字金融使用深度的提升则会对家庭债务风险发挥一定缓释作用;第三,数字金融通过房地产价格渠道提高了家庭房贷负债比,对家庭债务扩张产生中介效应;第四,数字金融对家庭债务风险的影响存在异质性,其对高负债家庭、城镇家庭和东部发达地区家庭作用显著,但强度随家庭收入上升而下降。稳健性和内生性检验结果均支持本文研究结论。

While improving the efficiency of financial operation,digital finance inevitably leads to over-credit of financial institutions and over-borrowing of households,thus increasing the vulnerability of household debt and causing hidden dangers for systemic financial risks.Out of the 2012—2020 sampling data of China Family Panel Studies database(CFPS),a total of 7561 valid samples were selected.Three indicators,namely debt-to-income ratio,debt service ratio and mortgage-to-debt ratio,were constructed to measure household debt risk.In addition,the intermediary effect model is used to test the transmission mechanism of the influence of real estate price channel on the relationship between household risk and digital finance.According to the research findings,firstly,market factors such as digital penetration and financial liberalization drive financial institutions to over-credit and households to over-borrowing,which destroys the stability and sustainability of household debt;secondly,the use of digital finance and the development of financial digitization promote the rise of household debt,while the use of digital finance will play a certain role in mitigating the risk of household debt;thirdly,through the real estate price channel,digital finance has increased the household mortgage-to-debt ratio and played an intermediary effect on the expansion of household debt;fourthly,the impact of digital finance on household debt risk is heterogeneous.It plays a prominent role in high debt families,urban families and families in eastern developed areas,but the impact intensity decreases with the increase of household disposable income and increases with the expansion of household initial debt scale.The conclusion of this paper is still robust after the robustness and endogeneity test by variable replacement method,SYS-GMM model reestimation and propensity score matching(PSM).In order to restrain the negative impact of digital finance on household debt,this paper proposes that we should strengthen the supervision of digital finance,effectively curb the increase of leverage in household sector,and advance the arrangement of household debt intergenerational smooth hedging mechanism.