Does mobile payment adoption affect the level and inequality of food expenditure?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of mobile payment adoption on the level and inequality of food expenditure using the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey data. We employ the Gini coefficient to measure food expenditure inequality and use the two-stage predictor substitution approach to address the endogeneity of mobile payment adoption. The results show that mobile payment adoption is associated with lower food expenditure. Specifically, mobile payment adopters spend 2,347 yuan less annually on food than non-adopters. Furthermore, food expenditure inequality is lower among mobile payment adopters than non-adopters. Owning a car, education, and income are positively associated with food expenditure; food expenditure inequality is lower in the more advanced regions of China. The results suggest that mobile payments can play an important role in helping households save considerably on food expenditure, a necessary outlay constituting a significant proportion of the overall spending of Chinese households.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobile payment
• Food expenditure
• Inequality
• Two-stage predictor substitution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Hongyun Zheng upon request.

Notes

¹ The detailed description of the CGSS can be found at http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/English/Home.htm.

² To check for robustness, we also used the variance as an inequality measure for analyzing the effect of mobile payment adoption on food expenditure inequality. Both indicators yielded similar results.

Additional information

Funding

Hongyun Zheng gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662022JGQD006).