Research on the impact mechanism of digital financial inclusion on green consumption

The article empirically tests the effects and mechanisms of digital financial inclusion on green consumption by building an econometric model using panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2023. The study finds that: (1) the conclusions of benchmark regression show that the rapid development of digital financial inclusion markedly elevates the level of green consumption, and this conclusion still holds after multiple robustness tests; (2) the conclusions of mechanism test show that digital financial inclusion can drive the growth of green consumption through the path of promoting the development of industrial structure to a higher level; (3) the analysis of regional heterogeneity reveals that, compared to other regions, the eastern provinces show more obvious effects in digital financial inclusion to promote green consumption. Given these results, the following suggestions are made: firstly, to strengthen the mechanism of synergistic development of digital financial inclusion and green consumption; secondly, to promote the optimization of the industrial structure; and thirdly, pay attention to and make efforts to address the issue of asymmetric regional progress of digital financial inclusion.