Beschreibung:
In rural areas of China, consumption has been at a low level. The development of digital payments has broadened rural residents’ consumption channels and has also affected their consumption structure, but few studies have been conducted about this. This paper studies how digital payment impacts the consumption structure of rural households in China based on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2014 to 2018. The research results show that digital payments have improved Chinese rural household consumption, especially its development, which has changed the consumption structure of Chinese rural households and has also promoted the consumption upgrading of rural households. Through mechanism analysis, we find that digital payments promote consumption upgrading by encouraging entrepreneurship and reducing uncertainty. Furthermore, we find that digital payment has a more significant impact on households in areas with lower traditional financial access, high-income households, and households with lower old-age dependency. This study enriches research on digital payment and household consumption structures, and is significant for other developing countries