Gao Xue, Li Junpeng
School of Economics, Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China.
School of Business Administration Northeastern University, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110167, China.
Heliyon. 2024 Jul 30;10(15):e35433. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e35433. eCollection 2024 Aug 15.
Exploring approaches to improve rural household well-being has always been an important task. This research investigates the effect of Internet use on rural household well-being measured by household consumption diversity, utilizing the 2016, 2018, and 2020 China Family Panel Studies survey data. To assess rural household consumption diversity, we employ the Simpson index and Shannon-Weaver index. To address the endogeneity of Internet use, we regress an instrumental variable-based two-stage least square (2SLS) method. The results show that Internet use substantially improves rural household consumption diversity. The disaggregated analysis suggests that low-income and small households in Central China benefit the most in consumption diversity improvement from using the Internet. Moreover, the mechanism analysis results show that household deposits and households' beliefs about accessing commercial activities can positively mediate the relationship between Internet use and consumption diversity of rural household. Our findings provide new evidence for the literature on the role of Internet use in improving household consumption diversity in rural China.
探索改善农村家庭福祉的方法一直是一项重要任务。本研究利用2016年、2018年和2020年中国家庭追踪调查数据，调查了互联网使用对以家庭消费多样性衡量的农村家庭福祉的影响。为评估农村家庭消费多样性，我们采用辛普森指数和香农-韦弗指数。为解决互联网使用的内生性问题，我们采用基于工具变量的两阶段最小二乘法（2SLS）进行回归分析。结果表明，互联网使用显著改善了农村家庭消费多样性。分类分析表明，中国中部地区的低收入家庭和小家庭在利用互联网改善消费多样性方面受益最大。此外，机制分析结果表明，家庭存款和家庭对参与商业活动的信念能够正向调节互联网使用与农村家庭消费多样性之间的关系。我们的研究结果为互联网使用在中国农村家庭消费多样性改善中所起作用的文献提供了新的证据。
