“雪中送炭”还是“雪上加霜”:数字普惠金融缩小了城乡收入差距吗?

“Better or Worse”:Has Digital Financial InclusionNarrowed the Urban-rural Income Gap?

绝对贫困退出之后,如何解决相对贫困问题?已有的大多数文献认为,数字普惠金融可以缩小城乡、东中西部之间的收入差距。但数字普惠金融之普及有一定的门槛,且越是低收入群体集中的地方,数字鸿沟越严重。对2011—2021年各省份的数据实证研究发现,数字普惠金融总指数缩小城乡居民收入差距的作用不显著,但数字普惠金融三个分指标中覆盖广度和使用深度指标都显著缩小了城乡居民收入差距,而数字化程度则显著扩大了城乡居民收入差距,说明城乡数字鸿沟问题是制约数字普惠金融缩小城乡居民收入差距的原因所在。若不能有效解决城乡数字鸿沟问题,数字普惠金融的发展对于缩小城乡居民收入差距而言,不仅不能“雪中送炭”,反而可能会“雪上加霜”。

How to solve the problem of relative poverty after the withdrawal of absolute poverty?Most literature suggests that digital inclusive finance can narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas,as well as between the eastern,central,and western regions.However,there is a certain threshold for the popularization of digital inclusive finance,and the more low-income groups are concentrated,the more severe the digital divide becomes.This paper empirically studies the data of 31 provinces in China from 2011-2021,and finds that the role of the digital inclusive financial index in narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents is not significant,but the coverage and depth of use indicators of the three sub indicators of digital inclusive finance have significantly narrowed the income gap between urban and rural residents,while the digital degree has significantly expanded the income gap between urban and rural residents,this shows that the urban-rural digital divide is the reason that restricts digital inclusive finance to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents.If the problem of urban-rural digital divide cannot be effectively solved,the development of digital inclusive finance will not only fail to provide timely help to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents,but may make it worse.