An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Digital Financial Inclusion Development On The Performance Of Small And Micro Enterprises

As an important part of the national economy,improving the performance of small and micro enterprises is not only beneficial to the enterprise itself,but also the national economy and peoples livelihood Small and micro enterprises are small in scale and cannot grow only by their own capital.Therefore,the development of most small and micro enterprises must rely on external funds.However,when obtaining external financing,small and micro enterprises often face high financing costs and serious financing constraints,which leads to limited development of enterprises and is adverse to enterprise performance.Compared with traditional inclusive finance,digital financial inclusion can provide more diversified financial services to small and micro enterprises with its technical advantages,and alleviate the financing constraints of small and micro enterprises by broadening financing channels,reducing financing costs and improving financing efficiency.At the same time,the development of digital financial inclusion alleviates the lack of investment in innovation,which is conducive to technological innovation.Based on the analysis of the long tail theory,asymmetric information theory financial development theory and resource-based view,this paper proposes the impact mechanism of digital financial inclusion development on the performance of small and micro enterprises from the perspectives of financing constraints and technological innovation.On this foundation,this paper selects the annual panel data of 878 listed companies in SME board and growth enterprise board in China from 2011 to 2018,and uses‘The Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China' to represent the development level of digital financial inclusion,Tobins Q value is used to measure enterprise performance.In this paper,two-way fixed effect model is used to test the impact of digital financial inclusion on the performance of small and micro enterprises from the perspectives of all samples,different regions and different ownership systems.This paper also tests the mediating effects of financing constraints and technological innovation through stepwise regression analysis.Through empirical analysis,this paper finds that:First,the development of digital financial inclusion is helpful to alleviate the financing constraints of small and micro enterprises and relieve the constraints of financing constraints on technological innovation.Second,the development of digital financial inclusion can effectively boost the performance of small and micro enterprises,and financing constraints and technological innovation have a mediating effect on the role of digital financial inclusion in enterprise performance.On the one hand,the development of digital financial inclusion can enhance the financing ability of enterprises by alleviating the financing constraints of small and medium-sized enterprises and improving the financing environment,and promote enterprises to increase investment,which will have a direct positive impact on enterprise performance.On the other hand,the development of digital financial inclusion represents the change of technology environment in which enterprises are located,creates a relatively fair competition environment,which is conducive to technological innovation and indirectly promotes the performance of enterprises.Third,there are obvious regional differences in the impact of the development of digital financial inclusion on the performance of enterprises.The boost of the development of digital financial inclusion on the performance of small and micro enterprises in the east regions is significantly greater than that in the central and western regions.Fourth,the development of digital financial inclusion has different effects on the performance of different ownership enterprises.Compared with state-owned enterprises,the development of digital finance is more conducive to alleviating the financing constraints of private small and micro enterprises and promoting their technological innovation,so as to improve the performance of enterprises.Based on the research conclusion,this paper believes that the development of digital financial inclusion should be promoted on the basis of focusing on the coordinated development of regions,the allocation of digital financial resources among regions should be balanced,and the advantages of digital financial inclusion in improving the performance of small and micro enterprises should be given full play.The government should encourage small and micro enterprises to rationally allocate digital inclusive financial resources to solve the problem of financing constraints and carry out technological innovation,so as to achieve sustainable and high-quality development.The digital financial inclusion supervision system should be improved to guide the healthy development of digital financial inclusion.Accelerating the development of digital technology can provide support for the further application of digital finance.