Research On The Impact Of The Development Of Digital Finance On China’s Regional Total Factor Productivity

China’s 40 years of reform and opening-up have created a “growth miracle” that shocked the world.However,with the economic development entering the new normal,the economic growth mode driven by investment in the past is no longer sustainable.The report of the 19 th CPC National Congress also stressed that as economy enters the stage of high-quality development,it is essential to “give impetus to the change in both quality and efficiency of economic development”.Meanwhile,actions taken by cities——the carriers of supporting China’s economic development——to improve total factor productivity in this stage have also received a lot of attention.In addition,digital finance,an emerging financial model that has developed rapidly in China in recent years,further deepens the financial development theory under the common use of digital technology.Its basic function is still to serve the real economy.What’s more,it can provide huge development space for promoting the quality and efficiency of financial services.Digital finance is also of vital significance to the rational allocation of financial resources.Digital finance has become a new engine for the improvement of China’s regional total factor productivity as it is in line with financial innovation required by high-quality economic development.This paper examines the effect of the development of digital finance on China’s regional total factor productivity from theoretical as well as empirical aspects.For beginning,on the basis of literature review,this paper theoretically explains the impact and mechanism of digital finance development on regional total factor productivity,and puts forward research hypotheses.Moreover,this paper empirically tests the influence of digital finance on regional total factor productivity using the panel data of China’s 278 cities from 2011 to 2019.Then,this paper analyzes if the development of digital finance can improve regional total factor productivity through upgrading regional industrial structure as well as enhancing regional innovation using the intermediary effect model.Finally,this paper examines heterogeneity effect that digital finance has on China’s regional total factor productivity from four different perspectives: the degree of social trust,the size and grade of cities,and the development level of regional traditional finance.The results show that,first of all,digital finance can raise regional total factor productivity.Secondly,upgrading regional industrial structure and enhancing regional innovation are two of the intermediary channels for development of digital finance to improve regional total factor productivity.Thirdly,the influence of digital finance has on regional total factor productivity can be affected by differences in social trust,urban scale and level,traditional financial development level between cities.