关键词: 金融科技, 农村居民, 收入增加, 机制分析, 政策协同

Abstract: In recent years, although the income of rural residents in China has grown relatively quickly, the Gini coefficient of urban-rural income has continued to increase. Therefore, how to promote faster income growth for rural residents has become a key issue in achieving common prosperity. Among the many macro and micro factors, the level of financial support often determines farmers' willingness and actions to increase their income. However, traditional finance is often unable to cover long-tail users represented by farmers due to the mismatch between returns and risks. Therefore, the development of fintech can utilize advanced digital technologies to serve long-tail groups better than the traditional financial system. To some extent, this will alleviate farmers' financing dilemmas and become one of the important breakthroughs for increasing farmers' income.
Theoretically, fintech can help promote economic growth at the macro level, assist industrial restructuring and upgrading at the meso level, and improve total factor productivity and technological innovation at the micro level. Similarly, it also plays an indispensable role in influencing farmers' income. Firstly, the emergence of fintech can change the traditional financial system's dependence on physical outlets. The financial services it provides break through the constraints of time and space and expand the coverage of financial products and services, enhancing the availability of financial services so that rural residents can also obtain more convenient and efficient financial services. Secondly, the digital technologies on which fintech relies can more accurately portray borrowers' real situation, helping reduce information asymmetry and increase the availability of loans for rural residents. Finally, the development of fintech also provides good underlying technical support for various information service platforms in rural areas, helping alleviate the information island problem in rural areas. It broadens the channels for rural residents to quickly access relevant information, allowing them to better grasp various market opportunities and increase their income.
To verify the theoretical analysis above, this paper uses the 2011-2020 panel data on fintech and farmers' income at the city level in China. Firstly, it constructs a “fintech-rural residents' income increase” research paradigm and elaborates on the impact mechanism and heterogeneous manifestations of fintech on the income increase in rural residents theoretically and empirically. Secondly, it identifies the mechanism path of fintech's impact on rural residents' income increase through the mediation effect model. Finally, based on the Broadband China pilot policy, it is investigated here whether improving digital infrastructure will affect the role of fintech in increasing rural residents' income. The empirical results show that fintech does promote the growth of farmers' income. Heterogeneity tests find that this promotion effect differs significantly across regions and different income categories. The effect is more significant in eastern regions and on wage income, but weaker on property income and operating income in central, western, and northeastern regions. Mechanism testing reveals that fintech's driving effect on increasing farmers' income is mainly achieved by improving non-agricultural employment, alleviating agricultural financing constraints, and increasing agricultural total factor productivity. Further research finds that policy synergy is an essential external condition for exerting fintech's driving effect. The collaboration with the “Broadband China” pilot policy and related policies can further leverage fintech's driving role in financial assistance and technological spillover to provide a better financial environment for increasing farmers' income.
Based on the conclusions, this paper puts forward policy recommendations to give full play to fintech's technological and financial power in driving the increase in farmers' income, fully consider regional differences in resources endowments and development levels, unblock the transmission channels for fintech to increase farmers' income, and attach great importance to the role of policy collaboration in increasing farmers' income. This provides new research perspectives to maximize fintech's financial support effectiveness and more possible policy portfolio options to increase farmers' income.

Key words: financial technology, rural residents, income increasing, mechanism analysis, policy coordination