Can Digital Finance Improve Enterprise Total Factor Productivity？Empirical Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

Improving the quality and efficiency of financial services in the real economy is the key to driving the high-quality development of the Chinese economy. With the development of information technology, the in-depth integration of digital technology and finance is the general trend. Whether digital finance, a new financial format, can empower the production efficiency of enterprises and promote the high-quality development of enterprises has become the focus of attention. On the one hand, digital finance has stronger geographical penetration and low-cost advantages, which can broaden the boundaries of financial services and achieve efficient allocation of resources; on the other hand, the “silver effect” triggered by digital finance has weakened the monopoly power of banks. Relieving the dilemma of “difficult and expensive financing” of enterprises can help enterprises increase RD digital finance has a stronger effect on improving the productivity of innovative enterprises, enterprises with higher asset-liability ratios, enterprises in the secondary and tertiary industries, and enterprises in areas with developed traditional finance and high levels of information technology. Accordingly, the country should pay attention to the productivity improvement effect of digital finance, and create a good external environment to further promote the development of digital finance. On the premise of maintaining the bottom line of systemic financial risks, more policy support should be given to digital finance, and each region should implement differentiated digital financial service strategies based on regional resource endowments and industrial development status.