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Does digital financial inclusion promote common prosperity? The role of regional innovation

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Abstract

This paper uses the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2021 to empirically test the relationship between digital inclusive finance (DINDEX), regional innovation, and common prosperity (CPP) by using the fixed effect model as well as the structural equation model. According to the findings of the study, digital inclusive finance has a considerable promoting influence on the attainment of the aim of common prosperity, with the breadth and depth of coverage of digital inclusive finance having a greater promoting effect on common prosperity. Based on the analysis of regional heterogeneity, digital inclusive finance has a favorable influence on boosting the common prosperity level of China's Eastern and Central provinces. Furthermore, digital inclusive finance has a higher driving influence on common prosperity in the Eastern provinces but has no effect in the Western provinces. The level of regional innovation has played a partial mediating role in the process of promoting common prosperity through digital inclusive finance. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the integration and development of digital inclusive finance and regional innovation, to help the realization of common prosperity.

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 23&ZD069).

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  1. School of Economics and Business Administration, Heilongjiang University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150080, China

    Tongtong Zhao & Fangyi Jiao

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  1. Tongtong Zhao
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Contributions

TZ: Data curation, Investigation, Software, Visualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Formal analysis. FJ: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Resources.

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Zhao, T., Jiao, F. Does digital financial inclusion promote common prosperity? The role of regional innovation. Electron Commer Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-023-09797-z

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