数字经济能激发农村家庭消费活力吗?

Can Digital Economy Stimulate Rural Household Consumption Vitality?

全面促进农村家庭消费有助于形成以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局,扎实推进共同富裕。作为数字经济的重要表现形式,电子商务是驱动中国经济高质量发展的重要引擎。本文基于中国家庭金融调查数据和中国城乡治理调查数据,运用多时点双重差分模型,实证研究了“电子商务进农村综合示范”政策对农村家庭消费的影响。研究发现,该政策使得农村家庭总消费提高5813元,并降低了恩格尔系数及生存型消费占比,提高了发展型消费占比及享受型消费占比,促进了消费升级,优化了消费结构。机制分析结果表明,该政策能够减小流动性约束和预防性储蓄动机对农村家庭消费的负向影响。同时,该政策亦能消弭低市场可达性和高搜寻成本对农村家庭消费的负向作用。异质性分析显示,该政策对“银龄族”家庭、低教育程度家庭、中西部及南方地区的农村家庭消费有更为显著的推动作用。本文为数字经济促进农村家庭消费提供了有益的经验证据,可为形成新发展格局相关政策的制定提供有力参考。

Comprehensively promoting rural household consumption will help form a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international cycles reinforcing each other,and firmly promote common prosperity.As a major manifestation of the digital economy,e-commerce is a new engine driving the high-quality development of China’s economy.In 2014,the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce carried out the“comprehensive demonstration of e-commerce into rural areas”policy to accelerate rural e-commerce into the fast lane and promote the rapid development of rural e-commerce.Against this background,this paper studies the impact of the policy on rural household consumption.First,we discuss the impact of the e-commerce policy on the total consumption and consumption structure of rural households.Then,we discuss the influence mechanism from the perspective of liquidity constraint,precautionary savings,market accessibility and searching costs.Finally,we analyze heterogeneity by age,education level,and region.Based on CHFS data from 2015 to 2019,this paper empirically studies the impact of the“comprehensive demonstration of e-commerce into rural areas”policy on rural household consumption by using the staggered DID model.The study found that this policy increased the total consumption of rural households by 5813 RMB,and reduced the Engel coefficient and the proportion of subsistence consumption,increased the proportion of development consumption and the proportion of enjoyment consumption,promoted the upgrading of consumption,optimized the consumption structure.Mechanism analysis shows that this policy can reduce the negative impact of liquidity constraint and precautionary saving motivation on rural household consumption.At the same time,the policy can also eliminate the negative effects of low market access and high search costs on rural household consumption.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy has a more significant promoting effect on the consumption of“silver age”families,families with low education level,and rural families in the central and western regions and southern regions.Compared with the existing literature,the contribution of this paper is mainly in the following three aspects.First,this paper studies the effect of the“comprehensive demonstration policy of e-commerce into rural areas”on rural household consumption.This paper discusses the impact of e-commerce policies on the total consumption of rural household from the micro perspective,and enriches the research in the field of digital economy and household consumption.Second,this paper uses the staggered DID model to identify the influence of the policy.This model can effectively solve the endogeneity problem.This paper takes the“comprehensive demonstration policy of e-commerce into rural areas”as an exogenous event,and finds that this policy can significantly influence the consumption level and consumption structure of rural household.Finally,we discuss the influence channels of the policy.We explore the mechanism of the effect of this policy on rural household consumption from the perspectives of liquidity constraint,precautionary savings,market accessibility and search cost,and deepens the understanding of the relationship between e-commerce and rural household consumption under different paths.Based on this,we propose the following policy recommendations.First,vigorously promote the construction of new digital infrastructure and continue to promote the development of rural e-commerce.Second,continue to build rural e-commerce infrastructure,from the supply side to increase the inclusiveness of e-commerce.Third,actively cultivate rural families’e-commerce knowledge and skills,and strengthen the inclusiveness of e-commerce from the demand side.