The effect of digital infrastructure development on household energy consumption expenditure--taking broadband China strategy as an example

Abstract

The provision of digital infrastructure and affordable energy for households is an important direction for improving the living conditions of the population. The link between digital infrastructure development and affordable energy should be examined if multiple sustainable development goals are to be achieved simultaneously for the residential sector. This study employs a staggered difference-in-differences model to investigate the effect of digital infrastructure development on household energy consumption expenditure (HECE) by using the Broadband China Strategy as an example. The results indicate that: (1) The digital infrastructure development significantly reduced HECE; (2) digital infrastructure development significantly increased HECE as a share of total consumption, but did not have a significant effect on its share in subsistence consumption. Potential channel analysis shows that: (3) household per capita and subsistence consumption expenditure generate scale effects, and communication expenditure in developmental consumption expenditure generate complementary effects. Further heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that: (4) digital infrastructure development significantly reduced HECE of rural and fixed registration residents, and optimizes HECE and the share of subsistence consumption expenditures of residents with medium levels of consumption more significantly. The findings of this paper demonstrate the important role of improving digital infrastructure development in developing countries, especially in non-urban areas, which increases access to affordable energy for the general population and synchronize the achievement of multiple sustainable development goals.

Keywords: Affordable energy; Broadband China strategy; Digital infrastructure development; Household energy consumption expenditure; Sustainable development goal.