Does Digital Inclusive Finance Effectively Promote Agricultural Green Development?-A Case Study of China

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jun 7;19(12):6982. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19126982.

Abstract

Agricultural green development is increasingly being discussed in sustainable development. This paper constructs agricultural green development from four dimensions: resource savings, environmental protection, ecological conservation, and quality industrialization. We apply the entropy-weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to measure agricultural green development and employ a panel dataset of provinces in China from 2011-2019. Then, the dynamic spatial Durbin model is adopted to estimate the spatial effect of digital inclusive finance on agricultural green development. The main findings are as follows: (1) digital inclusive finance effectively promotes agricultural green development, and the promotional effect shows temporary and spatial spillover; (2) regional heterogeneity exists in the spatial effect in the short and long term; and (3) education, digital infrastructure, and traditional finance are important factors influencing this spatial effect of digital inclusive finance on agricultural green development.

Keywords: China; agricultural green development; digital inclusive finance; dynamic spatial Durbin model; entropy-weighted TOPSIS method; sustainable development.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture*
  • China
  • Conservation of Natural Resources
  • Economic Development
  • Entropy
  • Sustainable Development*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (grant number: 21XGL008) and the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science Project of China (grant number: 20YJC790032).