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Digital Financial Inclusion and Consumption Smoothing in China
Author(s) -
Lai Jennifer T.,
Yan Isabel K. M.,
Yi Xingjian,
Zhang Hao
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
china and world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.815
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1749-124X
pISSN - 1671-2234
DOI - 10.1111/cwe.12312
Subject(s) - consumption smoothing , consumption (sociology) , economics , china , smoothing , financial inclusion , household income , permanent income hypothesis , demographic economics , monetary economics , labour economics , macroeconomics , finance , financial services , business cycle , geography , social science , archaeology , sociology , computer science , market liquidity , computer vision
In this paper, we investigate the effect of digital financial inclusion (DFI) on household consumption smoothing in China. We use four waves of the biennial China Family Panel Studies from 2010 to 2016, during which time DFI has significantly developed alongside financial technology across China. We split household income shocks into permanent and transitory components, and evaluate if DFI may help households to buffer against these shocks. We find that households are not able to insure against permanent shocks to income, but they can smooth approximately 70 percent of transitory shocks to income. We also find that DFI has diminished households’ ability to insure against transitory income shocks. This is partly because online purchase may lead to the oversensitivity of consumption to income. In addition, we find that contrary to DFI, traditional financial sector development contributes to better household consumption smoothing against transitory income shocks.