数字金融包容性与中国收入不平等

Digital Financial Inclusionand Income Inequality inChina Yan Shen, Fei Han, and Yanlong Li WP/25/71 IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers arethose of the author(s) and do not necessarilyrepresent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board,or IMF management. 2025APR IMF Working Paper Institute for Capacity Development Digital Financial Inclusion and Income Inequality in ChinaPrepared byYan Shen,Fei Han, andYanlong Li* Authorized for distribution by Natan EpsteinApril2025 IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of theauthor(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT:This paper uses both macro and household-level data to examine the relationship between digitalfinancial inclusion, measured by the Peking University digital financial inclusion index, and income inequality inChina. We find that a higher level of digital financial inclusion is associated with significantly lower incomeinequalitywithinprovinces, including through having larger positive effects on lower-income households’incomes from salaries and public and private transfers. However, we do not find a significant impact of digitalfinancial inclusion on income inequalityacrossprovinces, as households in the relatively more developedsouthern region benefitted more from digital financial inclusion than those in the northern region. We also findthat digital financial inclusion has larger effects on the incomes of rural, female-headed, and less educatedhouseholds, which have likely contributed to the narrowing of the overall income inequality, but a smaller effecton the income of elderly households—pointing to the “digital divide” problem among the elderly in China. RECOMMENDED CITATION:Shen, Yan, Han, Fei, and Li, Yanlong, 2025, “Digital Financial Inclusion andIncome Inequality in China,” IMF Working Paper 25/71. Contents I. Introduction........................................................................................................................................................2II. Literature Review..............................................................................................................................................4III. Empirical Strategy & Data................................................................................................................................8IV. Digital Financial Inclusion & Income Inequality: Macro Effects......................................................................10V. Further Analysis: Micro Effects & Mechanisms..............................................................................................14VI. Conclusions and Policy Implications..............................................................................................................25References..........................................................................................................................................................28 I.Introduction A large body of literature has studied the relationship between financial inclusionand income inequality.From atheoretical perspective, financial inclusion, definedas accesstoand use offormalfinancial services byhouseholds,could reduce income inequality by increasing the opportunities foreducation andentrepreneurshipamong the poor (see, e.g.,Aghion and Bolton,1997;Banerjee and Newman,1993;Dabla-Norriset al., 2021).Empirically, most studies have founda negativerelationship between financial inclusion and income inequality,althoughthe results differ across regions and countries(see, e.g.,Čihákand Sahay, 2020;Mookerjee andKalipioni,2010; Neaime and Gaysset, 2018). Amid the rapid development of digitalfinancial services (including mobile payments and mobile banking)enabled by fintechin recent years, digital financial inclusion—defined as access to and use of formal financialservices via digital financial services—has advancedinmostemerging market and developing economies,even where traditional financial inclusion retreated (Kheraet al., 2021; Sahayet al., 2020).That said, theliteraturehas not reached a consensusonwhether and howdigital financial inclusioncould affectincomeinequality.Some studies found thatfinancial inclusion is a key channel through whichfintechreduces incomeinequality(see, e.g., Demiret al., 2022), while some showedthat financialization and digital technologycouldwidenincome inequalityas high-income people have easier access to low-cost financial products and digitaltechnologies(see, e.g., Daudet al., 2021).Others argued thatdigital financial inclusionreduces incomeinequalityinmore developed countriesbutincreasesit incountriesthat are in theearlystage of development—as suggested by the Kuznetscurve(Si