IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i5p4020-d1077037.html

The Road to Common Prosperity: Can the Digital Countryside Construction Increase Household Income?

Author

Listed:
  • Heng Li

    (School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China)

  • Shangguang Yang

    (School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China)

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s digital economy, promoting the digital countryside construction has become the strategic focus and priority development direction of rural revitalization and common prosperity. This paper combines the county-level digital countryside index with the data from the China Household Finance Survey to empirically analyze the impact and mechanism of the digital countryside construction on household income. The results show that the digital countryside construction can significantly improve the level of household income. After the endogenous analysis and the robustness test, this core conclusion is still valid. From the perspective of mechanism test, the digital countryside construction can increase household income by promoting household entrepreneurship and nonagricultural employment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that there is no significant difference in the income-increasing effect of the digital countryside construction, whether urban or rural households, or households with different human capital and social relations, which means that the digital countryside development has the characteristics of inclusiveness and sharing. Under the background of unswervingly taking the road of common prosperity for all Chinese people, this paper provides some micro-evidence for how the digital economy can contribute to household income growth, as well as provides a useful reference for the implementation of the digital China strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Heng Li & Shangguang Yang, 2023. "The Road to Common Prosperity: Can the Digital Countryside Construction Increase Household Income?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-19, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4020-:d:1077037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4020/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4020/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Woessmann, Ludger, 2014. "Surfing alone? The internet and social capital: Evidence from an unforeseeable technological mistake," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 73-89.
    2. Fleisher, Belton & Li, Haizheng & Zhao, Min Qiang, 2010. "Human capital, economic growth, and regional inequality in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 215-231, July.
    3. Forman, Chris & Goldfarb, Avi & Greenstein, Shane, 2005. "How did location affect adoption of the commercial Internet? Global village vs. urban leadership," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 389-420, November.
    4. John Whalley & Xiliang Zhao, 2010. "The Contribution of Human Capital to China's Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 16592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Zhang, Xin & Zhang, Xiaobo & Chen, Xi, 2017. "Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 81-94.
    6. Peter Kuhn & Hani Mansour, 2014. "Is Internet Job Search Still Ineffective?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(581), pages 1213-1233, December.
    7. Gao, Yanyan & Zang, Leizhen & Sun, Jun, 2018. "Does computer penetration increase farmers’ income? An empirical study from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 345-360.
    8. Christiaan Grootaert & Gi-Taik Oh & Anand Swamy, 2002. "Social Capital, Household Welfare and Poverty in Burkina Faso," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 11(1), pages 4-38, March.
    9. Jonas Hjort & Jonas Poulsen, 2019. "The Arrival of Fast Internet and Employment in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 1032-1079, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mengzhen Wang & Xingong Ding & Pengfei Cheng, 2024. "Exploring the income impact of rural e-commerce comprehensive demonstration project and determinants of county selection," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Dandan Kong & Jing Li & Zehu Jin, 2023. "Can Digital Economy Drive Income Level Growth in the Context of Sustainable Development? Fresh Evidence from “Broadband China”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-21, September.
    3. Hui Liu & Meiqin Ding & Yujin Kan & Qi Dong, 2025. "A Study on the Relationship Between Rural E-Commerce Development and Farmers’ Income Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-27, April.
    4. Xiangfei Ma & Yifan Ruan & Qiying Yang, 2023. "Evaluating China’s Common Prosperity Policies against the Background of Green Development by Using the PMC Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-13, May.
    5. Deshuo Zhang & Qingning Lin & Shiping Mao, 2024. "Addressing Rural Decline: China’s Practices in Rural Transformation and Farmers’ Income Growth," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, September.
    6. Muziyun Liu & Hui Liu, 2024. "The Influence and Mechanism of Digital Village Construction on the Urban–Rural Income Gap under the Goal of Common Prosperity," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, May.
    7. Yang, Nana & Ao, Xugao & Tu, Yongqian, 2024. "The impact of digital financial development on rural household income mobility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    8. Chengkai Zhang & Yu Li & Lili Yang & Zheng Wang, 2023. "Does the Development of Digital Inclusive Finance Promote the Construction of Digital Villages?—An Empirical Study Based on the Chinese Experience," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-23, August.
    9. Ziang Zhang & Huiying Zhang & Michael S Lin & Wentong Jia, 2025. "Is more rural digitization always better for tourism? An innovative multiscale spatial perspective," Tourism Economics, , vol. 31(2), pages 285-308, March.
    10. Jiaxuan Li & Zhiyuan Peng, 2024. "Impact of Digital Villages on Agricultural Green Growth Based on Empirical Analysis of Chinese Provincial Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-27, November.
    11. Wang, Qiulin & Hu, Jinmiao, 2025. "How do artificial intelligence applications affect the labor income share?New challenges to common prosperity in the digital economy era," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    12. Zhang, Kaixia & Bu, Caiqi, 2024. "The power of digitalization: A study of the effect of the digital economy on household energy poverty," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Campbell, Richard Cole, 2024. "Need for speed: Fiber and student achievement," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6).
    2. Yu, Binbin, 2022. "The Impact of the Internet on Industrial Green Productivity: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. Yao Zhao & Xuena Kong & Mahmood Ahmad & Zahoor Ahmed, 2023. "Digital Economy, Industrial Structure, and Environmental Quality: Assessing the Roles of Educational Investment, Green Innovation, and Economic Globalization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-24, January.
    4. Jing Li & Tsun Se Cheong & Jianfa Shen & Dahai Fu, 2019. "Urbanization And Rural–Urban Consumption Disparity: Evidence From China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(04), pages 983-996, September.
    5. Dan Pan & Peiyao Zhou & Fanbin Kong, 2023. "Effect of place-based policy on regional economic growth: A quasi-natural experiment from China’s Old Revolutionary Development Program," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-20, July.
    6. Luo, Peikun & Chen, Yongqing & Shan, Donglu & Wang, Pengcheng, 2025. "Internet use, social capital and high-quality employment," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Robert Huggins & Hiro Izushi, 2013. "Knowledge-based Development in Leading Regions across the Globe: An Exploratory Analysis of the co-Evolution of Resources, Capabilities and Outputs," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(5), pages 1030-1048, April.
    8. Emran,M. Shahe & Sun,Yan - GSP05, 2015. "Are the children of uneducated farmers doubly disadvantaged ? farm, nonfarm and intergenerational educational mobility in rural China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7459, The World Bank.
    9. Xi Zhang & Scott Rozelle, 2022. "Education Universalization, Rural School Participation, and Population Density," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(4), pages 4-30, July.
    10. Baltagi, Badi H. & Feng, Qu & Kao, Chihwa, 2016. "Estimation of heterogeneous panels with structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(1), pages 176-195.
    11. Huang, Jie & Lu, Hongyang & Du, Minzhe, 2025. "Can digital economy narrow the regional economic gap? Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    12. Shunquan Huang & Yongsheng Huo & Guangnian Xiao, 2025. "Impact of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” Construction on the Efficiency of China’s Coastal Ports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-22, January.
    13. Yufeng Wang & Shijun Zhang & Luyao Zhang, 2023. "The Impact of Location-Based Tax Incentives and Carbon Emission Intensity: Evidence from China’s Western Development Strategy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Dong, Xiao-Ying & Hao, Yu, 2018. "Would income inequality affect electricity consumption? Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 215-227.
    15. Tran, Nguyen Van & Alauddin, Mohammad & Tran, Quyet Van, 2019. "Labour quality and benefits reaped from global economic integration: An application of dynamic panel SGMM estimators," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 92-106.
    16. Hanewald, Katja & Jia, Ruo & Liu, Zining, 2021. "Why is inequality higher among the old? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Rod Tyers & Yixiao Zhou, 2023. "Automation and inequality with taxes and transfers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(1), pages 68-100, February.
    18. Cao, Kang Hua & Birchenall, Javier A., 2013. "Agricultural productivity, structural change, and economic growth in post-reform China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 165-180.
    19. Guo, Bingnan & Hu, Peiji & Lin, Ji, 2024. "The effect of digital infrastructure development on enterprise green transformation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    20. Weiming Li & Zhaoyang Cai & Shixiong Cao, 2021. "What has caused regional income inequality in China? Effects of 10 socioeconomic factors on per capita income," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(9), pages 13403-13417, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4020-:d:1077037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.