关键词: 数字普惠金融, 共同富裕, 效率与公平, 资本配置

Abstract: How to balance the economic development efficiency and social equity is the key to achieving high-quality economic development, rural revitalization, and common prosperity. Based on the inherent needs of China's high-quality development, this paper first analyzes the theoretical logic about how the technical attributes of information and inclusive attributes of finance contained in digital inclusive finance promote and realize the goal of common prosperity from the perspectives of distribution fairness and efficiency,and then selects 277 regions in China as research samples to conduct an empirical test with the help of the “Digital Financial Inclusion Index” from Peking University. It demonstrates the theoretical mechanism of digital inclusive finance in promoting the achievement of common prosperity from the perspective of information technology attribute and financial inclusion attribute and the integration of the two. The empirical study makes a horizontal comparison of the differentiated effects of different types of digital inclusive finance business on promoting the achievement of common prosperity, based on the research on the breadth, depth and digitalization degree of digital inclusive finance. Finally, the heterogeneity of the above effects is analyzed according to the characteristics of cities. The main findings of this paper are as follows: First of all, the breadth of “universal” and the depth of “benefit” in digital inclusive finance significantly contribute to improving the efficiency of economy and narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas by breaking the financial exclusion of traditional financial services. However, the deepening of digitalization has led to a larger digital divide and widened the income gap, highlighting the importance of good integration of digital technology and inclusive finance. Secondly, through the cross-sectional comparison of the six major businesses of digital inclusive finance, it is found that the integration effect of digital technology in capital integration financial business is better than that in capital allocation financial business, which indicates that optimizing capital allocation with the help of digital technology will become the key to the development of digital inclusive finance in the future. Thirdly, the different characteristics of cities create heterogeneous effects on the effects of economic efficiency and equity in the development of digital inclusion finance. The locations of different cities allow the eastern region to receive more economic efficiency dividends and narrow the urban-rural income gap in the central and western regions. Similarly, digital financial inclusion shows stronger positive effects in cities with higher levels of economic development. In addition, digital financial inclusion can address capital distortions by both bridging capital gaps and reallocating redundant capital, and over-allocated areas receive far more dividends than under-allocated areas. The empirical results on SMEs' access to finance show that digital inclusive finance business improves rural income and reduces the urban-rural gap by complementing the business scope of traditional financial institutions, but its effect on total factor productivity is effective only in areas with diverse access to finance. Finally, having a strong capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship is another key for digital inclusive finance to promote common prosperity. Based on the above conclusions, this paper suggests that optimizing the structure of the digital inclusive financial system, improving the level of digital applications in rural areas, properly understanding and improving inclusive financial services, and maintaining a favorable financial environment are important cornerstones for gradually promoting common prosperity in the context of high-quality development.

Key words: Digital Inclusive Finance, Common Prosperity, Efficiency and Equity, Capital Allocation