数字新基建对农村居民家庭消费的赋能效应研究——来自西南四省“宽带乡村”试点的经验证据

Research on the empowering effect of digital new infrastructure on rural household consumption——Evidence from the"broadband rural"pilot program in four southwest provinces

在数字经济时代下,通过数字新基建充分释放数字红利以激发农村消费市场对畅通国内大循环具有重要价值。该文以西南四省“宽带乡村”政策试点作为准自然实验,基于2013-2019年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,建立多期DID模型,实证考察了数字新基建对我国农村居民家庭消费水平的影响及其机制。结果发现,总体而言,宽带下乡这一数字新基建政策能够显著提升农村居民的消费水平。从消费结构来看,数字新基建有助于生存型消费、发展型消费和享受型消费内需动力的全面释放,其中对生存型消费的改善效果最为明显。通过进一步分析还发现,数字新基建对居民消费的促进作用主要是借助手机这一网络终端来实现,而电脑由于价格较为昂贵则会产生一定的挤出效应。此外,作用机制探究结果表明,数字新基建可以通过提高信息关注度和丰富社交网络来推动农村消费意愿提升。该文的研究能够为新时代农村数字基础设施规划提供有力的政策评估依据。

In the era of digital economy,the full release of digital dividends through digital new infrastructure to stimulate the rural consumer market is of great value to smooth the domestic cycle.This paper takes the pilot of"broadband rural"policy as a quasi-natural experiment,and based on the(China Household Finance Survey,CHFS)data from 2013 to 2019,establishes a multi-period DID model to empirically investigate the impact of digital new infrastructure on the household consumption level of rural residents in China and its mechanism.The results show that,in general,the new digital infrastructure policy of broadband to the countryside can significantly improve the consumption level of rural residents.From the perspective of consumption structure,digital new infrastructure is conducive to the full release of domestic demand power of subsistence,development and enjoyment consumption,among which the improvement effect of subsistence consumption is the most obvious.Further analysis also found that the promotion of digital new infrastructure on consumption is mainly achieved with the help of the mobile phone network terminal,while the computer will have a certain crowding out effect because the price is more expensive.In addition,the action mechanism results show that the new digital infrastructure can promote the increase of rural consumption willingness by increasing information attention and enriching social networks.This study can provide a powerful policy evaluation basis for the follow-up rural digital infrastructure planning in the new era.