Research On The Impact Of Digital Inclusive Finance On Family Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is important in easing employment pressure and promoting economic growth.Entrepreneurship is influenced by various factors such as the entrepreneur’s personal endowment and macro environment,among which finance is the most important driving force for entrepreneurial activities.Digital inclusive finance based on digital technology has greatly improved the financial environment for entrepreneurs and lowered the threshold of access to financial services.Therefore,an in-depth discussion of the impact of digital inclusive finance on entrepreneurship is conducive to better exploiting the entrepreneurial effect of digital inclusive finance,which is important for alleviating employment pressure and promoting economic growth in the post-epidemic era.Based on the above background,this paper conducts an in-depth theoretical and empirical analysis of the micro-entrepreneurial effect of digital inclusive finance and its impact mechanism from the perspective of household entrepreneurship.First,this paper analyzes the direct impact of digital inclusive finance on household entrepreneurship from a theoretical perspective,followed by exploring the impact mechanism of digital inclusive finance on household entrepreneurship from three perspectives: credit availability,financial capability and risk tolerance,and then the corresponding research hypotheses are proposed.In terms of empirical analysis,this paper matches the digital inclusive finance index of Peking University with household entrepreneurship data from the 2013,2015,2017,and 2019 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS),and then constructs a panel probit model to test the impact of digital inclusive finance on household entrepreneurship,and a heterogeneity analysis was conducted at both the individual characteristics of household heads and urban and rural households to investigate whether digital inclusion is indeed inclusive in promoting household entrepreneurship.In addition,to enhance the robustness of the empirical results,this paper further makes endogeneity tests and robustness tests.Finally,this paper tests the specific paths through which digital financial inclusion affects household entrepreneurship by constructing a mediating effects model.The paper draws four conclusions as follows:(1)Digital financial inclusion significantly increases the probability of households to engage in entrepreneurial activities.In terms of the three dimensions of digital financial inclusion,breadth of coverage currently has the largest positive impact on household entrepreneurship,followed by digitalization,while depth of use does not have a significant positive impact on household entrepreneurship.(2)In terms of the types of household entrepreneurship,digital inclusion is more likely to promote selfemployment,"small workshop" entrepreneurship,and daily consumption entrepreneurship than employer-based entrepreneurship,model-based entrepreneurship,and non-daily consumption entrepreneurship.This reflects that the current development of digital financial inclusion is more likely to promote small-scale daily consumption entrepreneurship among households.(3)Heterogeneity analysis reveals that there are individual and urban-rural differences in the promotion of household entrepreneurship by digital inclusive finance.In particular,digital inclusive finance has a greater effect on promoting entrepreneurship for households headed by young people than for households headed by middle-aged or elderly people;it has a greater effect on promoting entrepreneurship for households headed by highly educated people than for households headed by less educated people;and it has a greater effect on promoting entrepreneurship for urban households than for rural households.This reflects the uneven development and "digital divide" of digital inclusive finance at present.(4)Digital inclusive finance can promote entrepreneurial activities among households by improving credit availability,financial capability,and risk tolerance.