Can digital financial inclusion help reduce agricultural non-point source pollution?—An empirical analysis from China

Abstract

In the context of financial support for rural revitalization, digital financial inclusion may become a new “gospel” to alleviate agricultural surface source pollution. Based on the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020, the study constructs a fixed-effects model to test the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution empirically. The study finds that: 1) Digital financial inclusion has a mitigating effect on agricultural non-point source pollution, and the abatement effect still exists after the robustness tests such as replacing the explanatory variables, reducing the sample size, and endogeneity treatment. 2) The moderating effect test shows that the income structure of farmers strengthens the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution, i.e., the more the income structure of farmers tends to be “non-farmed”, the stronger the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion. 3) The heterogeneity test found that all three dimensions of digital financial inclusion, including the breadth of coverage, depth of use, and degree of digitization, can mitigate agricultural non-point source pollution, but there are differences in the intensity of the effect. Compared with the northwestern part of the “hu huan yong” line, the mitigation effect of digital inclusive finance is more significant in the southeastern part of the “hu huan yong” line. 4) The threshold effect test shows that the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution has non-linear characteristics, and there is a double threshold effect of digital financial inclusion, and the mitigation effect will be enhanced as the development level of digital financial inclusion increases.

Economic driving characteristics of agricultural non-point source pollution and prevention suggestions: a case study from Shandong province in China

“…Therefore, the excessive use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and agricultural plastic films has resulted in increasingly severe ANSP. Secondly, the influencing factors of ANSP were studied (Yi et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2022;Duan and Li, 2023;Wang et al, 2023). Agricultural mechanization and the use of agrochemicals have contributed to the exponential growth of agricultural production and agricultural waste in many countries and exacerbated ANSP (Yi et al, 2021).…”

“…Agricultural mechanization and the use of agrochemicals have contributed to the exponential growth of agricultural production and agricultural waste in many countries and exacerbated ANSP (Yi et al, 2021). The level of environmental regulation and the level of digital financial development can also mitigate ANSP (Lin et al, 2022). The adjustment of the internal structure of the agricultural industry will change the form and intensity of agricultural pollutant emissions (Wang et al, 2023), which in turn will have a particular impact on ANSP.…”

“…Qualitative research is due to the lack of data support, so the relevant conclusions are not persuasive. Secondly, the research on the factors affecting ANSP mainly focuses on economic factors, institutional factors, and human endowment factors (Yi et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2022;Duan and Li, 2023;Wang et al, 2023). With the deepening of research and China's green sustainable development, more scholars have studied the relationship between ANSP andAEG (Shang et al, 2019;Lin et al, 2021;Cui et al, 2023), trying to explore the development trend of pollution and economy, to provide ideas for realizing the coordinated development of agricultural pollution and economy.…”

Can Digital Financial Inclusion Drive High-Quality Agricultural Development in China's Border Areas?

“…Consequently, the high-quality development of agriculture in the border regions may be impacted differently by various stages of the development of digital inclusive finance. Different effects are caused by high quality development [7] . Considering this, proposes hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2: The influence of digital inclusive finance on the high-quality growth of agriculture in China's border regions has a threshold effect.…”

The role of green finance in reducing agricultural non-point source pollution—an empirical analysis from China

“…Based on these, Jiang et al (2020) established a panel-smoothed transformation regression model and concluded that the increase in ANSP due to agricultural economic growth is largely related to the level of financial development and that increasing the level of finance to a medium-high threshold will suppress ANSP (Jiang et al, 2020). Lin et al (2022) empirically tested the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on ANSP by constructing a fixed-effects model based on provincial data in China. Some scholars have also found that with the improvement of the development level of digital inclusive finance, the effect of pollution mitigation is enhanced (Lin et al, 2022).…”