数字普惠金融发展、居民债务与居民消费——基于中介效应和门槛效应的经验分析

Digital Financial Inclusion Development, Household Debt and Household Consumption An Empirical Analysis Based on Intermediation and Threshold Effects

在数字普惠金融快速发展和居民债务水平上升的背景下,数字普惠金融可能通过居民债务这一中介变量间接作用于居民消费。本文基于国内外现有研究,提出了数字普惠金融发展通过居民债务影响居民消费的三点假设,并运用2013-2019年中国省级层面的面板数据,实证检验了数字普惠金融促进居民消费的总体效应、区域异质性效应以及间接机制。结果表明:数字普惠金融发展能够显著促进居民消费水平,但促进作用是非线性的,这一结论在经过内生性处理和稳健性检验后仍然成立。其中,东部地区和中部地区数字普惠金融对居民消费的提升效应明显,西部地区相对偏弱。除直接效应外,数字普惠金融还会通过居民债务这一间接机制促进居民消费的提升。适当提升居民债务水平有助于增进数字普惠金融对居民消费的正向效应,但当居民债务越过46.2%这一门槛值进入高债务区制后,数字普惠金融对居民消费的促进作用有所减弱。

Under the background of the rapid development of digital financial inclusion and the rising level of residents’ debt, digital financial inclusion may indirectly affect household consumption through the intermediary variable of household debt. Based on the existing research, this paper puts forward three assumptions about the development of digital inclusion development affects household consumption through household debt, then use provincial-level panel data from 2013 to 2019, this paper empirically examines the aggregate effect, regional heterogeneity effect and indirect mechanism of digital financial inclusion development on promoting household consumption. The results show that digital financial inclusion development can significantly promote the level of household consumption, but the promotion effect is non-linear, which is still valid after the endogenous treatment and robustness test. Among them, the eastern region has the most obvious effect, followed by the western region, the central region is not obvious. In addition to direct effects, digital financial inclusion development will also promote household consumption through the indirect mechanism of household debt. Appropriately raising the level of household debt will help to enhance the positive effect of digital digital financial inclusion development on household consumption. But when household debt crossed the threshold of 46.2% and entered the high-debt zone, the effect of digital financial inclusion development on household consumption weakened.