A Study On The Effect Of Digital Inclusive Finance On Driving High-quality Economic Development In The County Of Sichuan Province

The 14 th Five-Year Plan proposes that the theme of economic and social development remains high quality development.As the basic administrative unit of China’s economic development,the study of the high-quality development of county economy is of great significance to the overall high-quality development of the economy.This paper takes the counties of Sichuan Province as the target,and studies the path of their high-quality economic development,which is important for promoting the leapfrog development of the economy in the western region.Guided by the Five Development Concepts,this paper constructs a comprehensive index system to reflect the level of high-quality development of county economy in Sichuan Province in four dimensions: economic development momentum,economic structure optimization,economic development quality and efficiency,and economic achievement sharing.Then,using the index published by the Digital Finance Research Center of Peking University,we empirically analyze the role of digital inclusive finance and its first-level indicators on the high-quality development of county economy and its various dimensions;at the same time,we use industrial structure upgrading as a mediating variable to explore the role of digital inclusive finance on the high-quality development of county economy.In addition,a panel threshold model is used to analyse whether there is a threshold effect of urbanisation rate on the impact of digital inclusive finance on the high-quality development of county economy;on this basis,regional heterogeneity is used to explore the differences in the role of digital inclusive finance in different regions;finally,various robustness test methods are applied to prove that the empirical results of this paper are robust and reliable.The results of the study show that: firstly,both the index of high-quality economic development and the index of digital inclusive finance in Sichuan province show an overall growth trend,but the economic development gap between counties has increased;secondly,digital inclusive finance can significantly promote the high-quality development of county economy in Sichuan province,and this role shows regional heterogeneity,in which the upgrading of industrial structure plays an important intermediary role;thirdly,the depth of digital inclusive finance use has a stronger effect on high-quality economic development in counties than the breadth of coverage and digitalization;fourthly,digital inclusive finance promotes the high-quality development of county economy mainly in three aspects:optimizing economic structure,enhancing development quality and efficiency as well as promoting fruit sharing;fifthly,the role of digital inclusive finance in promoting the highquality development of county economy in Sichuan will show the effect of accelerating the threshold with the increase of urbanization rate.Based on the research,this paper puts forward the following recommendations: first,encourage continuous innovation in digital inclusive finance under compliance conditions;second,accelerate the urbanisation of each county to build a good environment for the development of digital inclusive finance;third,guide digital inclusive finance to help transform and upgrade industries,thus driving high-quality development of the county economy;fourth,formulate high-quality development policies in the light of the county’s own situation;and fifth,improve the regulatory system for digital inclusive finance.