Mobile Payment and Informal Business: Evidence from China's Household Panel Data

This paper uses household panel data to explore the impact of mobile payments on China's household business activity. Using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effect specification, I find that mobile payment users are more likely to operate small‐scale and self‐employed informal businesses. The i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:China & world economy Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 90 - 115
Main Author: Wang, Xue
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Beijing 中国社会科学院世界经济与政治研究所 01.05.2020
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Subjects:
Agribusiness
Agricultural development
Business
Companies
Employment
entrepreneurial activity
Families & family life
financial inclusion
Households
Housework
Longitudinal studies
Low income groups
Mobile commerce
mobile payment
Owners
Panel data
Payments
Relatives
small and micro‐business
Specification
China
financial inclusion
mobile payment
entrepreneurial activity
small and micro-business
ISSN:1671-2234, 1749-124X
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper uses household panel data to explore the impact of mobile payments on China's household business activity. Using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effect specification, I find that mobile payment users are more likely to operate small‐scale and self‐employed informal businesses. The impact of using mobile payment primarily derives from the transition of agricultural families to business owners and the development of informal businesses. The paper illustrates an associated increase in employment and income for family members, with more pronounced effects on low‐income and rural households. It also provides prima facie evidence of the increase in fund transfers, which is important for risk sharing that informal businesses may encounter.
Bibliography:This research was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 18ZDA091). The author is very grateful to Zhichao Yin, Honghui Zhu, Xun Wang, Yang Ji and Yiping Huang for their helpful advice and comments.
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1671-2234
1749-124X
DOI:10.1111/cwe.12334