Does digital finance increase household risk-taking? Evidence from China

Debao Hu, Fang Guo, Jianing Shang and Xinyue Zhang

International Review of Economics & Finance, 2024, vol. 93, issue PA, 1197-1210

Abstract: The risk-taking behavior of economic participants has long attracted scholarly attention. Existing research focuses on the risk-taking of corporations, while studies on households are scarce. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey and the Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China, we explore the impact of digital finance on household risk-taking. We find that digital finance increases household risk-taking, and our results are robust against potential endogeneity concerns. We determine that financial literacy, financial availability, and background risk mitigation are effective mechanisms through which digital finance impacts household risk-taking. Our results imply that policymakers could shape household risk-taking with the aid of digital finance.

Keywords: Digital finance; Household risk-taking; Financial literacy; Financial availability; Background risk mitigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056024002387
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:93:y:2024:i:pa:p:1197-1210

DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2024.03.073

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics & Finance is currently edited by H. Beladi and C. Chen

More articles in International Review of Economics & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().