Research on the Impact of Unified National Market Construction on Household Consumption Upgrading

The construction of a unified national market represents a crucial institutional arrangement for facilitating the domestic economic cycle. Based on provincial panel data in China from 2000 to 2024, this paper employs the relative price method to measure market integration indices and utilizes two-way fixed effects and mediation models to systematically examine its impact on household consumption upgrading. The findings indicate that market integration exerts a significant positive effect on consumption upgrading: a one-unit increase in the market integration index raises the consumption upgrading index by 0.0017 units. The relationship between industrial structure and consumption upgrading follows an inverted U-shaped pattern, with a turning point at 2.23. The effect exhibits notable heterogeneity, being stronger in the central and western regions than in the eastern region, and more pronounced in highly integrated areas than in less integrated ones. The expansion of social consumption levels serves as the primary transmission channel, accounting for approximately 18% of the indirect effect. This study provides empirical evidence for deepening the construction of a unified national market and promoting the optimization of consumption structure.