社会信任对居民消费的影响及其机制研究

Research on the Influence of Social Trust on Household Consumption and Its Mechanism

本文利用2018年中国家庭追踪调查数据,考察社会信任对居民消费水平和消费结构的影响。研究结果表明:社会信任对居民消费有显著的促进作用,且这一促进作用在降低内生性影响和更换测度指标等稳健性检验下仍然成立。进一步的机制分析结果显示,居民的社交网络、生活信念和社会安全感是社会信任影响居民消费的重要途径;社会信任的提高有利于居民消费结构升级,主要促进家庭教育培训和文化娱乐等发展与享受型消费。异质性分析结果表明,社会信任对消费的促进作用对于方言趋同较高地区和交通位置较优越的居民更为明显。本文的研究结果不仅为扩大内需和进一步发挥中国市场优势提供了新的政策思路,也为推动供需动态平衡和促进经济高质量发展转型提供了经验证据。

Expanding domestic demand is essential for building a new development pattern. As an important social capital, social trust is critical for optimizing the consumption environment and releasing consumption potential. Using the CFPS data in 2018, this paper investigated the impact of social trust on the household consumption level and structure. It is found that social trust has a significant promotion effect on household consumption. On average, the higher trust group consumes 5.6% more than the lower trust group, which indicates that social trust can reduce residents’ uncertainty due to the lack of information and help them build security and confidence in the external environment. Moreover, this positive effect remains valid after eliminating the endogeneity and conducting a series of robustness tests, such as measuring social trust in multiple ways. The regression results of the 2SLS models show that when the trust of residents increases by 10%, the consumption level will increase by 3.19%, indicating that ignoring the endogeneity will lead to an underestimation of results. Mechanism tests reveal that social networks, life beliefs and social security are the main ways of social trust to promote household consumption. In terms of consumption structure, it is found that the increase of social trust mainly promotes the development and enjoyment of consumption such as education and entertainment, but has no boosting effect on basic needs consumption such as food and clothing. Therefore, the results indicate that the increase in residents’ overall social trust is more helpful for consumption upgrading. Additionally, the heterogeneity tests show that the promotion effect of social trust on consumption is more prominent in those households with higher income, regions with dialect convergence, and residents with superior locations.This paper confirms that social trust, as an informal institution, can complement formal institutions to unleash the potential of domestic demand. The main policy implications are as follows. Firstly, the government should strengthen the residents’ social trust, such as improving the credit system and the lost trust platform. At the same time, relevant departments should pay more attention to the construction of social trust in public institutions, and establish lasting and extensive social trust in residents in the long run. Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen the quality supervision of high-grade consumer goods, lead demand with high-quality supply, and create a more favorable consumption environment. Thirdly, the government should formulate differentiated consumption guidance policies for different types of families.The findings may provide new policy implications for expanding domestic demand and further achieving the goal of dual circulation. It also provides empirical evidence for promoting the dynamic supply-demand balance and promoting the transformation of high-quality economic development.