TY - JOUR
T1 - Digital Finance and Entrepreneurial Return Rate
T2 - Effects, Mechanisms and Inequality
AU - Chai, Shijun
AU - Zhou, Li
AU - Chen, Yang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023/10/1
Y1 - 2023/10/1
N2 - This study matches the digital financial inclusion index with micro panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2015, 2017, and 2019, and explores the impact of digital finance on the return rate of entrepreneurship. The results show that the effect is positive—entrepreneurial households in prefectures with higher digital finance obtain higher return rates—and remarkably reliable to a battery of endogeneity and robustness tests. Mechanism analysis indicates that the positive effect of digital finance on the return rate of entrepreneurship is achieved mainly through facilitating external financing and reducing financial transaction costs. Further research finds that the spillover effect of digital finance has obvious Internet bias: the “digital dividend” only extends to the advantaged classes who have access to the Internet—non-rural and migrating rural entrepreneurs, but for non-migrating rural entrepreneurs generally facing digital exclusion, digital finance has little effect on their return rate. The empirical evidence presented in this study has important policy implications for accelerating the digital finance process, promoting high-quality entrepreneurship development, and boosting digital poverty groups to break stratum solidification.
AB - This study matches the digital financial inclusion index with micro panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2015, 2017, and 2019, and explores the impact of digital finance on the return rate of entrepreneurship. The results show that the effect is positive—entrepreneurial households in prefectures with higher digital finance obtain higher return rates—and remarkably reliable to a battery of endogeneity and robustness tests. Mechanism analysis indicates that the positive effect of digital finance on the return rate of entrepreneurship is achieved mainly through facilitating external financing and reducing financial transaction costs. Further research finds that the spillover effect of digital finance has obvious Internet bias: the “digital dividend” only extends to the advantaged classes who have access to the Internet—non-rural and migrating rural entrepreneurs, but for non-migrating rural entrepreneurs generally facing digital exclusion, digital finance has little effect on their return rate. The empirical evidence presented in this study has important policy implications for accelerating the digital finance process, promoting high-quality entrepreneurship development, and boosting digital poverty groups to break stratum solidification.
KW - credit support
KW - digital finance
KW - entrepreneurial return rate
KW - financial transaction costs
KW - information transmission
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85175337470&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/21582440231205501
DO - 10.1177/21582440231205501
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85175337470
SN - 2158-2440
VL - 13
JO - SAGE Open
JF - SAGE Open
IS - 4
ER -