Abstract: This paper examines the impact of internet use on household’s financing behavior and its mechanism based on the data of Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2014. The results show that the use of Internet has significantly improved the accessibility to formal family financing and the amount of financing, while significantly reduced the accessibility to informal family financing. The use of Internet has significantly improved the accessibility to formal financing for urban and rural families, and has significantly inhibited the availability of informal financing for rural families. The use of Internet has significantly increased the amount of formal financing for urban families and has significantly reduced the amount of informal financing for urban households, but it has no significant effect on the amount of formal financing or informal financing for rural households. Family financing behaviors are affected by the use of Internet mainly through information search effect and social network effects. Therefore, the government should pay close attention to the informal financial governance effect of Internet, give Internet a full play in the revitalization of rural areas, and actively boost the Internet-oriented rural financial service supply.

Key words: Internet; household’s financing behaviors; social network; information search