| Under the drive of high-quality development goals,how to improve the quality of exported products and promote China’s rise in the global value chain has become one of the hot topics in the research of international business.Currently,China’s foreign trade volume ranks among the top in the world,and its status as a trading power is well known.However,the significant growth in trade volume has not enabled China to improve its position in the global value chain.The low quality of products and low added value are still one of the pressing issues that need to be addressed in China’s high-quality trade development.In recent years,the digital finance has made significant progress and presented a good development trend.With the empowerment of digital technology,the real economy has embraced more diversified development opportunities.In the field of export trade,the development of digital finance has brought more financial convenience to enterprises,which may improve the quality innovation activities of enterprises.Based on these background,this article adopts a combination of empirical analysis and case analysis to focus on the following research questions:(1)Can digital finance improve the quality of exported products of enterprises?(2)For those firms that are in the highly dependent on external financing industries,does digital finance have a more significant role in optimizing and upgrading its quality of exported products?(3)Will the effect of digital finance on promoting the quality of exported products vary according to the strength of financial supervision in different regions?Based on data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database,the China Customs Database,and the Peking University Digital Inclusive Finance Index,this article constructs micro-enterprise panel data from 2011 to2014 to explore whether digital finance will affect the quality of exported products of enterprises.The research results show that the development of digital finance promotes the improvement of the quality of exported products of enterprises,and the breadth and depth of digital finance coverage are the main driving dimensions.The heterogeneity analysis results show that digital finance significantly promotes the quality of exported products for non-state-owned enterprises,enterprises located in non-first-tier cities,and newly established enterprises.In mechanism verification,for enterprises with a higher external financing dependence in the industry,digital finance can significantly improve the quality of exported products of such enterprises.For enterprises in regions with higher financial regulatory levels,the role of digital finance in optimizing and upgrading the quality of exported products is more significant.Finally,in the case analysis,this article explores the impact of digital finance on improving the financing and product development status of Foton Motor.The research results of this article have a certain marginal contribution to the theoretical research of digital finance and the quality of exported products.Firstly,this article verifies the intrinsic correlation between digital finance and the quality of exported products under the updated sample period,and introduces two mechanisms of industry external finance dependence and financial supervision to supplement the empirical evidence in this field.In practice,the research conclusions of this article have certain policy implications for both the government and enterprises.The government should establish a sound financial regulatory framework,improve the current market information mechanism,and guide the positive development of digital finance.Enterprises should fully leverage the financing advantages of digital finance and use funds to improve the quality of their exported products. |
