社会信用如何影响数字普惠金融发展?

How Does Social Trust Affect the Development of Digital Financial Inclusion?

在数字普惠金融蓬勃发展的过程中,考察影响数字普惠金融发展的因素极具重要性。社会信用是否会影响数字普惠金融发展?本文利用2011—2019年中国280个城市的样本数据进行实证检验。研究表明:第一,社会信用可以显著促进地区数字普惠金融发展,尤其促进地区使用深度和数字化程度的增长,在利用双重差分模型和工具变量方法处理内生性问题并经过一系列稳健性检验之后,结论保持不变。第二,社会信用通过促进金融科技创新和提升地区创业水平来促进数字普惠金融发展。第三,社会信用对数字普惠金融的影响集中在中西部地区和四线及以下城市,法制环境发挥着正向的调节作用,政府的支持也有助于强化社会信用的正向影响。第四,社会信用的空间溢出效应在促进数字普惠金融发展的过程中同样发挥了重要作用。本文的研究为以建设和完善社会信用体系促进数字普惠金融协调和可持续发展提供了理论支撑和经验证据。

In the booming development of digital financial inclusion,it is extremely important to examine the factors in⁃fluencing the development of digital financial inclusion.At the same time,social trust plays a key role in promoting the devel⁃opment of the market economy.China has implemented the pilot policy of national social trust system model city construction since 2015,aiming to improve the social trust level of cities.As an important informal institution,social trust plays an impor⁃tant role in the process of traditional financial development.Now,does social trust affect the development of digital financial in⁃clusion?The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between social trust and digital financial inclusion from both theoretical analysis and empirical testing.This paper uses data from a sample of 280 cities in China from 2011 to 2019 to conduct an empirical test.The study shows that,firstly,social trust can significantly contribute to the development of regional digital financial inclusion,particularly in terms of increasing usage depth and digitization level,and the findings remain unchanged after the endogeneity issue is ad⁃dressed using a DID model and instrumental variables approach,and a series of robustness tests have been conducted.Sec⁃ondly,social trust promotes digital financial inclusion by fostering fintech innovation and enhancing regional entrepreneurship.Thirdly,the impact of social trust on digital financial inclusion is concentrated within the central and western regions,encom⁃passing cities classified as fourth tier and below.The legal environment and government support both play a positive moderat⁃ing role.Fourthly,the spatial spillover effect of social trust plays an equally important role in promoting the development of digital financial inclusion.The research in this paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for promoting the development of digital fi⁃nancial inclusion by building and improving the social trust system.In addition,it has significant practical implications for fa⁃cilitating the coordinated and balanced development of digital financial inclusion.