Research On The Influence Of Confucian Culture On The Development Of Digital Inclusive Finance In China

As a new financial service format in recent ten years,digital inclusive finance has broken through the traditional development path of the financial industry.Traditional financial services are influenced by the concept of "28 Law",and there is a significant problem of financial exclusion,while digital inclusive finance is pushing China’s economy to achieve pro-poor growth.Through in-depth investigation,it can be found that the development concept embodied in digital inclusive finance is highly compatible with the value concept of traditional Confucian culture in China.As a social recessive value standard,culture can influence the direction of a country’s financial development.Therefore,this paper breaks through the existing research perspective and analyzes the deep motivation of the development of China Digital inclusive finance from the perspective of cultural values.First of all,according to the Confucian classics,the values that have far-reaching influence in the Confucian culture are summarized and sorted out,including the claims for safeguarding and improving people’s livelihood,the view of taking advantage of righteousness and paying attention to honesty,and the view of pursuing social harmony of "not suffering from scarcity but suffering from inequality".On this basis,contacting the classical economic and financial theory,this paper analyzes and puts forward that the value concept of Confucian culture can produce value guidance,moral incentives and behavior norms for market players such as government and financial institutions,thus promoting the development of regional digital inclusive finance.This paper selects the data of 298 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2020 as the sample data of empirical research,and reasonably measures the influence of Confucian culture in various regions by calculating the number of Confucius temples within a certain radius.The empirical results show that:(1)after controlling a series of economic,cultural,religious and geographical factors,Confucian culture shows a positive role in promoting the development of regional digital inclusive finance,that is,the deeper an area is influenced by Confucian culture,the higher the development level of its digital inclusive finance.(2)The value concept of Confucian culture can promote the development of local digital inclusive finance by enhancing the public service attention of local governments.The value concept of Confucian culture is conducive to creating a good urban commercial credit environment,thus promoting the steady development of local digital inclusive finance.(3)The regional market environment and institutional environment play a regulating role in the influence of Confucian culture.Control other variables unchanged,the positive influence of Confucian culture on digital inclusive finance increases with the improvement of regional marketization level and weakens with the improvement of residents’ financial literacy.Based on theoretical analysis,this paper believes that laws and regulations,as formal systems,can have a certain replacement effect on the cultural informal system,that is,the positive impact of Confucian culture on the development of digital inclusive finance should be weakened with the improvement of the level of regional rule of law,but the empirical results show that this negative adjustment effect is not statistically significant.(4)After choosing to calculate the number of chastity archways in a region as a tool variable of Confucian cultural intensity and solving the possible endogenous problem,the basic conclusion of this paper is still valid.(5)Considering the influence of factors such as the choice of radius when calculating the number of Confucius temples,the existence of unique cultural customs in minority areas in the sample and the possible cultural impact of openness on the conclusion,this paper conducts a series of robustness tests,and the results show that the aforementioned conclusion is reliable.The above conclusions deepen the understanding of the value logic and internal motivation of the development of digital inclusive finance,provide new empirical evidence for revealing the influence of Confucian culture and economy,and make a useful supplement to the frontier literature in the field of "cultural finance".Finally,based on the research conclusions,this paper puts forward a series of policy suggestions,with a view to promoting the excellent Chinese traditional culture represented by Confucian culture to play a greater positive role in the financial development of China.