关键词: 数字鸿沟, 数字信贷行为, 风险偏好, 农户

Abstract:

In underdeveloped areas, the problem of demand-based digital credit constraints is prominent. Solving this problem is a prerequisite for digital credit to play a financial inclusive role in the rural credit market. Digital credit, as an emerging product of digital technology embedded in financial services, has high requirements for the digital literacy of consumers. With the gap between urban and rural Internet penetration rates narrowing to 19.1%, the gap in the digital divide among different groups in underdeveloped areas is worthy of attention. So, in underdeveloped areas, will rural households with digital divide face the inequality of digital financial dividends? In view of this background, this article focuses on the following research questions: What are the characteristics of rural households’ digital credit behavior in underdeveloped areas? What is the impact of the digital divide on digital credit behavior and what is its influence mechanism? What is the inclusive effect of digital credit?
This study takes rural households in underdeveloped areas as the research object to analyze the characteristics of their digital credit behavior and clarify the direct and indirect mechanism of the digital divide influencing the digital credit behavior of rural households from a new perspective of the digital divide. It also explores the differential impact of the tool-based gap, the knowledge-based gap and the use-based gap on the digital credit behavior of rural households, and makes further analysis of the heterogeneity of relative poverty and rejection by traditional credit to reveal the negative impact of the digital gap on the inclusive effect of digital credit. The data used in the study come from the survey of rural inclusive finance in underdeveloped areas in 2019. The Firthlogit model, which is suitable for rare event analysis, is used to empirically analyze the direct impact of the digital divide on the digital credit behavior of rural households, and an intermediary effect model is built to verify the existence of the mechanism of risk attitude. It also adopts the estimation model that replaces the benchmark regression, transforms the measurement method of “digital divide” and “digital credit participation” and uses the instrumental variable method to conduct the robustness test.
The main conclusions are as follows: First, the rural households’ digital credit participation is severely insufficient. Most rural households have a relatively short period of participation in digital credit, and relatives and friends are the main channels for rural households to understand digital credit. The attractiveness of digital credit lies in its flexible borrowing and repayment methods, rather than financing costs, and the funds are mainly used for shopping and the amount of borrowing is small. Second, the knowledge-based and use-based digital divide are the main reasons for the lack of digital credit participation, and the tool-based digital divide has no significant impact. Third, the digital divide mainly suppresses the participation in digital credit by reducing their risk preference. Fourth, the existence of the digital divide makes relatively poor groups and traditional credit-excluded groups face more prominent digital credit constraints, making it difficult for digital credit to fill the financial service gaps in underdeveloped areas. The article puts forward the following suggestions: First, it is recommended that local governments in underdeveloped areas accelerate the development of digital technology infrastructure to improve the development of county-level digital finance. Second, digital credit providers need to adhere to the principle of“Responsible Finance”, strengthen their own risk management mechanisms, and take digital financial knowledge training as an important content of customer financial capacity building to narrow the knowledge-based digital divide among rural households in underdeveloped areas. Third, the development of digital credit business should pay attention to the individual needs of young groups, and innovate business models. Fourth, rural households in underdeveloped areas should make efforts to unblock the information transmission mechanism, fill their knowledge-based gap and the use-based gap and shorten the psychological distance through inter-group communication and participation in digital financial knowledge training. In particular, those who are excluded from the traditional finance should avoid the digital divide and psychological exclusion which will lead to complete exclusion from credit opportunities (dual exclusion of traditional credit channels and digital credit channels), and aggravate the unequal distribution of financial resources among groups in underdeveloped areas.

Key words: Digital Divide, Digital Credit Behavior, Risk Preference, Rural Households