Does Financial Inclusion Have an Impact on Chinese Farmers’ Incomes? A Perspective Based on Total Factor Productivity in Agriculture

The development of inclusive finance brings opportunities for farmers’ income growth. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2014 to 2023, this study explores the relationship between financial inclusion and two dimensions of financial inclusion (the degree of inclusion and the service efficiency of the financial function) and farmers’ incomes by constructing a two-way fixed-effects model. Meanwhile, this study further discusses the impact of agricultural total factor productivity on this relationship using a mediated-effects model. The results show that financial inclusion, the degree of inclusion, and the service efficiency of the financial function significantly contribute to the growth of farmers’ income in both the short and long run. Meanwhile, farmers’ reliance on financial inclusion and the two dimensions of financial inclusion deepens with income, and this reliance is more pronounced in economically developed regions. Further, promoting agricultural total factor productivity is an important way for financial inclusion and the degree of inclusion to contribute to short- and long-term income growth for Chinese farmers.