IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i12p7410-d841023.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Nexus between Digital Finance and High-Quality Development of SMEs: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Chang Xie

    (School of Management and Economy, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China)

  • Chuanzhe Liu

    (School of Management and Economy, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China)

Abstract

In the context of digital finance and based on the characteristics of the high-quality development of SMEs in China, this paper investigates the influence of digital finance on the high-quality development of SMEs and explores their mechanism of influence. A panel econometric model and mediation model are used to evaluate the data of 581 SMEs in China from 2011 to 2020. The results show that digital finance has a significant role in promoting the development quality of SMEs. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the promotion effect of digital finance is more obvious in central and western regions, non-heavy pollution industries and non-state-owned SMEs than that of other SMEs. Further analysis shows that digital finance improves the efficiency of financial resource allocation, which in turn promotes the high-quality development of SMEs. After applying a test of robustness, the results proved significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Chang Xie & Chuanzhe Liu, 2022. "The Nexus between Digital Finance and High-Quality Development of SMEs: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-20, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:12:p:7410-:d:841023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7410/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7410/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Leora Klapper & Dorothe Singer & Saniya Ansar & Jake Hess, 2020. "The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and Opportunities to Expand Access to and Use of Financial Services," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(Supplemen), pages 2-8.
    2. Polasik, Michał & Huterska, Agnieszka & Iftikhar, Rehan & Mikula, Štěpán, 2020. "The impact of Payment Services Directive 2 on the PayTech sector development in Europe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 385-401.
    3. Wang Chen & Takuji Kinkyo, 2016. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: Long-Run Relationship and Short-Run Heterogeneity," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 733-742, March.
    4. Cyn-Young Park & Rogelio V. Mercado, 2016. "Does Financial Inclusion Reduce Poverty and Income Inequality in Developing Asia?," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, in: Sasidaran Gopalan & Tomoo Kikuchi (ed.), Financial Inclusion in Asia, chapter 3, pages 61-92, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Uddin, Md Hamid & Mollah, Sabur & Ali, Md Hakim, 2020. "Does cyber tech spending matter for bank stability?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Xiuxiu Jiang & Xia Wang & Jia Ren & Zhimin Xie, 2021. "The Nexus between Digital Finance and Economic Development: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Ailian Zhang & Shuyao Wang & Bai Liu & Pei Liu, 2022. "How fintech impacts pre‐ and post‐loan risk in Chinese commercial banks," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2514-2529, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mengyao Liu & Yan Hou & Hongli Jiang, 2023. "The Energy-Saving Effect of E-Commerce Development—A Quasi-Natural Experiment in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-22, June.
    2. Mao Wu & Jiayi Guo & Hongzhi Tian & Yuanyuan Hong, 2022. "Can Digital Finance Promote Peak Carbon Dioxide Emissions? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-21, November.
    3. Shiyun Li, 2025. "Leveraging Big Data for SME Credit Risk Assessment: A Novel BP-KMV and GARCH Integration," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(1), pages 3321-3349, March.
    4. Dudi Permana & Ansa Savad Salim & Yanto Ramli & Zilola Shamansurova, 2024. "Analyzing the Impact of Natural Resource Rents, Green Finance and Digital Finance on Environmental Quality: Evidence from Developing Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 14(6), pages 195-204, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pengju Liu & Yitong Zhang & Shengqi Zhou, 2023. "Has Digital Financial Inclusion Narrowed the Urban–Rural Income Gap? A Study of the Spatial Influence Mechanism Based on Data from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Hu, Haifeng & Wei, Tao & Wang, Aiping, 2025. "Does digital transformation enhance bank soundness? Evidence from Chinese commercial banks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Choudhary, Priya & Thenmozhi, M., 2024. "Fintech and financial sector: ADO analysis and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Rongwu Zhang & Wenqiang Fu & Yingxu Kuang, 2022. "Can Digital Economy Promote Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in Heavily Polluting Enterprises? Empirical Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Igor Khanin & Volodimir Bilozubenko & Yevhen Sopin, 2022. "Improving The Level Of Economic Effectiveness Of Electronic Payment Services In A Global Digital Economy," Baltic Journal of Economic Studies, Publishing house "Baltija Publishing", vol. 8(1).
    6. Guosong Wang & Huizhen Zhang, 2025. "FinTech-Driven Corporate Sustainability: A Technology–Organization–Environment Framework Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-28, September.
    7. Uddin, Md Hamid & Mollah, Sabur & Islam, Nazrul & Ali, Md Hakim, 2023. "Does digital transformation matter for operational risk exposure?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    8. Wei Yu & Huiqin Huang & Xinyan Kong & Keying Zhu, 2023. "Can Digital Inclusive Finance Improve the Financial Performance of SMEs?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Yue, Sishi & Yang, Mo & Dong, Dayong, 2024. "Do enterprises adopting digital finance exhibit higher values? Based on textual analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Fang, Yi & Wang, Qi & Wang, Fan & Zhao, Yang, 2023. "Bank fintech, liquidity creation, and risk-taking: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. Haffejee, muhammad Ismail & Masih, Mansur, 2018. "Is the relationship between financial development and income inequality symmetric or asymmetric ? new evidence from South Africa based on NARDL," MPRA Paper 87574, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. León, Carlos, 2021. "The dawn of a mobile payment scheme: The case of Movii," Working papers 78, Red Investigadores de Economía.
    13. Liu, Dan & Jin, Yanhong & Pray, Carl & Liu, Shuang, 2020. "The Effects of Digital Inclusive Finance on Household Income and Income Inequality in China?," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304238, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Julie Birkenmaier & Jin Huang, 2024. "A systematic conceptual review of financial access," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 367-396, June.
    15. Yanmin Shi, 2024. "Digital finance and corporate breakthrough innovation: Evidence from China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(7), pages 1-38, July.
    16. Olatunji A. Shobande & Simplice A. Asongu, 2021. "Financial Development, Human Capital Development and Climate Change in East and Southern Africa," Working Papers 21/042, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    17. Razzaq, Asif & Yang, Xiaodong, 2023. "Digital finance and green growth in China: Appraising inclusive digital finance using web crawler technology and big data," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. Wang, Haijun & Mao, Kunyuan & Wu, Wanting & Luo, Haohan, 2023. "Fintech inputs, non-performing loans risk reduction and bank performance improvement," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    19. Isaac Koomson & Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Musharavati Ephraim Munyanyi, 2022. "Gambling and Financial Stress," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 473-503, August.
    20. Cyn-Young Park & Rogelio Mercado Jr., 2018. "Financial Inclusion: New Measurement and Cross-Country Impact Assessment," Working Papers wp29, South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN) Research and Training Centre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:12:p:7410-:d:841023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.