The Impact of Rural Digital Technology Development on the Urban-Rural Consumption Gap:Evidence from the Pilot Projects of Broadband Village and Universal Telecommunication Service
It is of great significance to explore how to alleviate urban-rural consumption inequality in the era of digital economy in order to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas and realise common prosperity.The article systematically examines the effect of rural digital technology development on the urban-rural consumption gap and its underlying mechanism by adopting the double-difference method with 286 prefecture-level and above cities in China as the research samples from 2008-2021,and treating the pilot project of"broadband countryside"and the pilot project of telecommunication universal service as a quasi-natural experiment.The study finds that the development of rural digital technology has a significant impact on the rural-urban consumption gap.The study finds that the development of rural digital technology can improve urban-rural consumption inequality.The mechanism lies in the fact that the development of rural digital technologies has effectively narrowed the urban-rural consumption gap by raising income levels,improving the structure of income distribution,changing consumption attitudes,and reducing the cost of access to information.It is found that rural digital technology has the dual attributes of cumulative effect in time and strong externality,which not only has a stronger impact on the local area over time,but also has a spatial spillover effect on the neighbouring areas,which makes an important contribution to the improvement of urban-rural consumption inequality in China.
Rural Digital TechnologyUrban-Rural Consumption GapBroadband CountrysideTelecommunication Universal Service Pilot ProjectSpatial and Temporal Effect
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