The impact and moderating mechanisms of digital inclusive finance on public services in Chinese counties

This article selects data from 1445 counties across three regions of China (Eastern, Central, and Western) between 2008 and 2022. It constructs evaluation index systems for the quality of livelihood and infrastructure public services and uses the entropy weight method to measure and analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of these two types of public services. The article employs a Spatial Durbin Model with two-way fixed effects to explore the spatial spillover effects and moderating mechanisms of the digital inclusive finance on the quality of livelihood and infrastructure public services in Chinese counties, while also analyzing the regional heterogeneity of the digital inclusive finance's impact across the Eastern, Central, and Western regions. The results show that the digital inclusive finance significantly improves the quality of both livelihood and infrastructure public services in Chinese counties, with a more pronounced positive effect on livelihood services. In the counties of Western and Eastern China, the digital inclusive finance exhibits a significant positive spatial spillover effect on livelihood public services. In contrast, for infrastructure public services, a significant positive spatial spillover effect is observed in Western counties, while the spillover effect is significantly negative in other regions. From the perspective of moderating effects, the development of the primary industry in counties enhances the digital inclusive finance's positive impact on infrastructure services and strengthens its spillover effect on livelihood services in neighboring counties. An increase in local fiscal revenue boosts the digital inclusive finance's positive impact on both livelihood and infrastructure services within the county but suppresses its spillover effect on livelihood services in neighboring counties. This article provides empirical evidence from a Chinese perspective on the regional impact of the digital inclusive finance on public services.