数字经济发展是否促进社会代际流动?

Does the development of the digital economy promote intergenerational social mobility?

发展数字经济助推共同富裕,是当前广受关注的焦点话题.作为共同富裕的重要度量,社会代际流动能否在数字经济时代下得以改善,却鲜有文献述及.本文试图从理论和经验上考察数字经济发展对代际收入流动的影响,研究发现:1)平均而言,数字经济显著降低代际收入自相关性,反映了代际流动性得到改善,经由各种稳健性检验,结论依然成立. 2)机制在于,数字经济发展促进了家庭子代人力资本积累、激发城市创业活力和优化经济结构三条渠道来改善代际流动性. 3)在农村和内陆地区,数字经济发展的代际流动效果更佳.本文研究为数字变革下如何畅通社会流动性以及实现共同富裕提供新的政策洞见.

Developing the digital economy to boost common prosperity is a focus topic at the moment that has attracted wide attention.As an important measure of common prosperity,whether social intergenerational mobility can be improved in the digital economy era is rarely discussed in the literature.This paper seeks to systematically examine the role of the digital economy on intergenerational income mobility,both theoretically and empirically.The research found that:1)On average,the digital economy significantly reduces intergenerational income autocorrelation,which reflects the improvement of intergenerational mobility.After various ro-bustness tests,the conclusion still holds.2)The mechanism is that the development of the digital economy promotes the accumulation of human capital among family offspring,stimulates city entrepreneurial vitality,and optimizes the economic structure to improve intergenerational mo-bility.3)In rural and inland areas,the effect of intergenerational mobility in the development of the digital economy is better.The research in this paper can provide new policy insights on how to smooth social mobility and achieve common prosperity in the digital age.