数字普惠金融与城乡收入差距:机遇还是鸿沟

Digital Inclusive Finance and the Urban-Rural Income Gap:Opportunity or Divide

数字普惠金融作为普惠金融的延伸,契合了经济高质量发展对金融创新的本质要求,未来推动中国农业农村经济高质量发展和城乡收入差距持续缩小,数字普惠金融必然是重要的驱动力。基于中国2011-2020年各省(直辖市、自治区)数据,通过面板门槛模型的构建实证分析数字普惠金融作用于城乡收入差距中的门槛效应,研究结果表明:数字普惠金融发展有助于缩小城乡收入差距,但是这一影响存在双重门槛,替换被解释变量的稳健性检验也证实了这一结论;按人均GDP门槛值将我国划分为欠发达、较发达和发达省份三大区间,发现数字普惠金融发展在经济较发达和发达的省份能够显著缩小城乡收入差距,即为我国城乡收入差距的缩小提供了重要的“数字机遇”;但是经济欠发达省份的农民却面临着明显的“数字鸿沟”。在数据要素、数字技术等“新动能”催化下,数字金融为实现共同富裕提供了“新路径”,缓解城乡发展不平衡和农村发展不充分,推动农民农村共同富裕,应进一步纾解城乡间数字基础设施鸿沟、破解城乡居民数字化应用鸿沟、缓解金融机构间数字化发展鸿沟。

Digital inclusive finance,as an extension of inclusive finance,fits the essential requirement of financial innovation for high-quality economic development,and is bound to be the most important driving force to promote high-quality development of China’s agricultural and rural economy and sustainable reduction of the urban-rural income gap in the future.This paper empirically analyzes the threshold effect of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap through the construction of a panel threshold model based on the data of Chinese provinces(municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions)from 2011 to 2020.The findings show that:1)digital inclusive finance development helps narrow the urban-rural income gap,but there is a double threshold for this effect,and the robustness test of replacing the explanatory variables confirms this conclusion;2)if we divide China into three major zones,less developed,more developed and developed provinces,according to the threshold of GDP per capita,it is found that digital inclusive finance development significantly narrows the urban-rural income gap in the more developed and developed provinces,i.e.it provides an important“digital opportunity”;3)farmers in less developed provinces are facing a significant“digital divide”.Under the catalysis of“new driving forces”such as data elements and digital technology,digital finance provides a“new path”for achieving common prosperity.To alleviate the imbalance between urban and rural development and inadequate rural development,and promote common prosperity of farmers and rural areas,it is necessary to further alleviate the gap between urban and rural digital infrastructure,crack the digital application gap between urban and rural residents,and ease the digital development gap between financial institutions.