The Impact of Digital Inclusive Financial Development on Corporate R&D Investment in Fujian Province
Yu Zhou
School of Accounting and Finance Xiamen University, Tan Kah Kee College, China.
Jun Wang *
School of Accounting and Finance Xiamen University, Tan Kah Kee College, China.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Against the background of the rapid development of information technology and the wide application of the Internet, digital inclusive finance has become a key source of credit funds and an important force in promoting economic growth in China. This paper explores how the development of digital inclusive finance affects the R&D investment of enterprises. This paper takes 171 listed companies in Fujian Province as the research samples during the period from 2016 to 2021 and constructs a panel data fixed effect model to study the impact of digital financial inclusion on enterprises' R&D investment. The digital inclusive finance is selected from the city-level digital finance index released by the Digital Finance Research Center of Peking University, and the data on corporate R&D investment is derived from the relevant indexes in the database of listed companies of GuotaiAn to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the research results.
The results of the study show that the development level of digital inclusive finance has a positive relationship with the R&D investment of enterprises and that digital inclusive finance can positively affect the liquid assets of enterprises by enhancing the liquidity of enterprises, thus promoting the increase of innovative R&D investmsent of enterprises. Through data analysis, it is found that the impact of digital inclusive finance on enterprise innovation R&D investment has a certain lag, and the impact is more significant in the case of lagging. This finding provides empirical support for enterprise innovation and points out the important role of digital inclusive finance in promoting enterprise innovation. The country should vigorously develop digital inclusive finance and explore sustainable business models, thereby promoting the acceptance of digitization in the traditional financial industry and facilitating digital transformation. At the same time, firms should be encouraged to enhance corporate innovation through the effective use of digitally inclusive resources and to strengthen the identification and management of risks, thereby facilitating innovation and development.
Keywords: Digital financial inclusion, R&D investment, fujian province listed companies, fixed-effects modeling