Abstract

information, comparing products, and completing transactions, but its relationship with household consumption depends on financial resources and decision-making capabilities. This manuscript reorganizes the evidence reported by Wang and Tang from five repeated cross-sections of the China Social Survey covering 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023. The estimation sample contains 26,787 observations. The principal outcome, described in the underlying study as consumption intentions, is measured by the logarithm of annual household consumption expenditure; average propensity to consume supplies an alternative outcome. Convenient access is represented by a binary response indicating whether the internet can be used at any time and place. The fully controlled baseline coefficient is positive at 0.0543 and remains positive with the alternative outcome and winsorized variables. Income comparisons concentrate the statistically significant association among lower income households. Provincial broadband infrastructure provides an instrument in a two-stage analysis whose second-stage estimate is 0.3245, although the exclusion restriction remains an identifying assumption. Financial asset diversification, used as a financial-literacy proxy, partially mediates the relationship, with stronger evidence among households classified as having lower debt. Risk preference positively moderates the access consumption association. These results support an account in which digital access, financial participation, and household constraints are jointly relevant. Measurement choices, repeated cross-sectional identification, unequal debt group sizes, and inconsistencies in reported mediation statistics limit causal and behavioral interpretation. The implications concern inclusive connectivity and financially sustainable participation rather than indiscriminate expansion of household spending or borrowing.