Digital Financial Inclusion, Financial Efficiency and Green Innovation

Abstract

The financing difficulty of green innovation projects has always been an obstacle to enterprises’ green innovation. Digital financial inclusion provides a new opportunity to solve the financing difficulty of green innovation. Based on the construction of a theoretical framework for digital financial inclusion to influence green innovation, this study empirically analyzes the impact and mechanism of digital financial inclusion on green innovation by using the provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2020. The results show that digital financial inclusion has a significant positive impact on green innovation. The promotion effect of the development of digital financial inclusion on green innovation is mainly driven by the depth of digital financial inclusion use and the digitalization of financial inclusion. The results of the intermediary effect analysis show that digital financial inclusion can promote green innovation by alleviating capital misallocation and improving financial efficiency.