Whether innovative development is inclusive is crucial to narrowing inter-city disparities and achieving common prosperity. How to effectively use the opportunities of financial system reform to enhance the level of inclusive innovation development has become a new field for clarifying the relationship between finance and innovation. The arrival of the digital finance era provides conditions for the integration of innovative development and inclusive development across regions. The networked, platform-based, and ubiquitous characteristics of digital finance have promoted the equalization of innovation factor distribution across regions, significantly improving the level of inclusive innovation and development in these regions, and playing a crucial role in bridging inter-regional technological divides.
Using a two-way fixed effect model, this paper empirically studies how financial system reform affects inclusive innovation development from the perspectives of effect, heterogeneity, mechanism, and scenario, deepening the development concept from the inclusiveness of development results to the inclusiveness of development models. The study finds that digital inclusive finance has significantly improved the level of inclusive innovation among cities, mainly because it promotes the diversification of urban innovation entities, strengthens the matching degree of innovation comparative advantage, and thereby improves the level of inclusive innovation development within cities. In addition, this effect is more significant in cities with higher levels of digital inclusive finance, as well as after the emergence of “Yu’e Bao” and the “first mention of digital finance in the government work report.” Further analysis reveals that cities with larger differences in financing constraints and a higher proportion of output from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit more and experience stronger effects. Moreover, as the intensity of internal financing constraints and the external proportion of SME output within cities change, the influencing mechanisms of digital inclusive finance on inclusive innovation development exhibit different dynamic evolutionary characteristics.
The marginal contributions of this study are primarily reflected in three aspects.First, it broadens the research boundary of the impact effect of digital finance. Distinguishing itself from existing studies that generally focus on the economic and social effects of digital inclusive finance.This paper focuses on the innovation convergence effect and polarization effect of digital inclusive finance and explores the conditions under which these effects hold. Second, this study identifies the composite effects of digital inclusive finance on inclusive innovation development, validating the influencing mechanisms from two perspectives: the diversification of innovation entities and the matching degree of innovation comparative advantages. It discusses the dynamic effects of digital inclusive finance on the level of inclusive innovation development under varying internal financing constraint differences and external enterprise size proportions across regions. Finally, clarifying the heterogeneous effect of digital inclusive finance on inclusive innovation development has important implications for the precise and rational allocation of policy resources and local governance, and also provides a basis for scientifically promoting a differentiated and gradual digital inclusive financial system and improving the inclusiveness of innovation development.
The research findings indicate that digital inclusive finance plays a significant role in promoting inclusive innovation development. Bridging inter-regional technological divides requires not only focusing on the compensatory and spillover effects of technology itself but also delving into the underlying financial conditions that give rise to these technological gaps. Digital inclusive finance must be gradually integrated into the traditional financial system, thereby reducing disparities in financing constraints across regions. Simultaneously, in regions with a high proportion of SMEs, establishing a digital inclusive financial system should be prioritized. Furthermore, enhancing the diversity of innovation entities and aligning innovation comparative advantages should serve as key focal points for implementing financial system reform. A comprehensive policy framework for digital inclusive finance to achieve inclusive innovation development must be constructed and improved, ensuring inclusiveness in innovation development models across cities and bridging technological gaps.
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