Rural development in the digital age: Does information and communication technology adoption contribute to credit access and income growth in rural China?

Information and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in rural livelihoods and household well‐being. Therefore, this study examines the impact of ICT adoption on farmers' decisions to access credit and the joint effects of ICT adoption and access to credit on household income u...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inReview of development economics Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 1421 - 1444
Main Authors Ma, Wanglin, Qiu, Huanguang, Rahut, Dil Bahadur
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.08.2023
Subjects
Access
Access to credit
China
Communications technology
Family income
Farmers
household income
Households
ICT adoption
Information technology
Infrastructure
RBP model
Rural areas
Rural communities
Rural development
selectivity correction
Technology adoption
Welfare
Women
China
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Information and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in rural livelihoods and household well‐being. Therefore, this study examines the impact of ICT adoption on farmers' decisions to access credit and the joint effects of ICT adoption and access to credit on household income using 2016 China Labour‐force Dynamics Survey data. Both recursive bivariate probit model and a selectivity‐corrected ordinary least square regression model are employed for the analysis. The results show that ICT adoption increases the probability of access to credit by 12.8% in rural China and empowers rural women and farm households in relatively less‐developed regions to access credit. ICT adoption and access to credit affect household income differently. ICT adoption significantly increases household income, while access to credit significantly reduces it, primarily because farmers do not use the acquired credit to invest in income‐generating farm and off‐farm business activities. ICT adoption has the largest positive impact on household income at the highest 90th quantile. Our findings suggest that improving rural ICT infrastructure to enhance farmers' ICT adoption and developing ICT‐based financial products to enable households to access sufficient funds can improve rural household welfare.
ISSN:1363-6669
1467-9361
DOI:10.1111/rode.12943