Digital finance and happiness: evidence from China

ABSTRACT

Digital finance is an innovative business that applies information technology in the financial industry. Although empirical research on digital finance for development has grown enormously during the last decade, studies about the relationship between digital finance and human development remain limited. To fill this gap, this study uses data from the China Household Financial Survey and Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index to examine the association between digital finance and happiness. Results show that the association between digital finance and happiness is negative. Mechanism analyzes suggest that digital finance is negatively associated with happiness through the increasing debt burden and overspending behavior. Further heterogeneous analyzes find that age, debt level, and trust degree can be moderators in the relationship between digital finance and happiness. The results have both academic and practical implications for improving digital finance business and human development.

KEYWORDS:

• Debt burden
• digital finance
• financial capability
• happiness
• human development
• overspending

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available online for public use at https://chfs.swufe.edu.cn/datacenter/apply.html.

Additional information

Funding

Kexin Meng received support from China Scholarship Council Ph.D. Joint Training Scholarship when she conducted this research during her visit to the University of Rhode Island in 2021–2022.