Research on the impact of digital inclusive finance on private enterprise’s leverage level with financial constraint as a mediating variable

Abstract

Along with the advent of the digital economy, digital inclusive finance has increasingly played an important role in alleviating the enterprises’ financing difficulties and contributing to healthy economic development. This paper examines the effect, mediating mechanism and heterogeneity of digital inclusive finance on the leverage of private enterprises by empirically analyzing the private enterprises on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2011-2017. It shows that digital inclusive finance can significantly reduce the leverage level of private enterprises. Also, it can be achieved mainly through alleviating enterprises’ financing constraints. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the dual effect of digital inclusive finance in alleviating financing constraints and reducing leverage level is more significant for large private enterprises and middle-western regions. In addition, the impact of digital inclusive finance on reducing short-term leverage is more significant compared to long-term leverage. Therefore, this paper enriches the research related to the impact of digital inclusive finance on enterprises at the micro level, and provides empirical evidence for promoting the development of digital inclusive finance and optimizing the financial supply system.