Research on Income-Increasing Effect of Digital Inclusive Finance:Examining Its Effect on"Raising the Low and Expanding the Middle"
The key to achieving common prosperity lies in elevating the income of low-income groups and expanding the size of the middle-income demographic.The concept of digital inclusive finance offers innovative solutions to enhance the in-come levels of low-income populations.This study integrated data from the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)with the China Digital Financial Inclusion Index to examine how digital inclusive finance contributed to income augmentation among low-income groups.The research demonstrates that the development of digital inclusive finance contributes to enhancing the income of low-income groups,with the primary pathways being an increase in wage income and operating income.Digital inclusive fi-nance has a more pronounced impact on income growth for low-income groups in rural areas and exhibits a stronger promotion effect on operating income in regions with better digital advantages.The mechanism of action varies:promoting entrepreneur-ship facilitates improvements in operating income for low-income groups,while enhancing financial accessibility aids in aug-menting wage income.As for the"raising the low and expanding the middle"effect,digital inclusive finance yields superior outcomes in increasing incomes for low-income groups,reflecting its inclusiveness advantage.Compared to existing research,this paper makes several marginal contributions.Firstly,it organized the CFPS data into a continuously balanced panel based on family and personal information.This enables tracking and investigating the continuous impact of digital inclusive finance on income changes among low-income groups.Additionally,it supplements empirical re-search by examining the continuous changes in low-income groups from a micro-individual perspective.Secondly,this study distinguishes different income paths such as wage income,operating income,and transfer income.It combines these paths with mechanisms like entrepreneurship and financial accessibility to investigate their effects on narrowing the income gap,enriching theoretical discussions surrounding this topic.Thirdly,for the first time,this paper explores whether digital inclusive finance can achieve the goal of"raising the low and expanding the middle".By doing so,the paper provides supplementary empirical evidence on financial inclusion that holds valuable insights for future policy formulation.
Digital Inclusive FinanceLow-Income GroupsIncome-Increasing Effect