The Impact of Fintech on the Income Gap between Urban and Rural Residents

Abstract

This paper uses the provincial panel data from 2011 to 2020 to establish a fixed effect model and a panel threshold model to study the impact of Fintech on the urban-rural income gap. The results show that: (1) Overall, the development of financial technology will significantly narrow the urban-rural income gap, and has heterogeneity. The development of financial technology has the greatest impact on the urban-rural income gap in the western region, followed by the central region, and finally the eastern region; (2) Further establishing a panel threshold model, it is found that different levels of financial technology development have different effects on the urban-rural income gap, and when financial technology develops to a certain extent, its impact on the urban-rural income gap is significantly weakened.