The Impact of Financial Ecological Environment on Financial Input–Output: A Case Study of Rural Areas in Central China

The importance of financial development has been widely recognised, but there are still significant shortcomings in the argumentation and analysis of the relationship between rural financial development and the financial ecological environment (FEE), especially the lack of systematic research to reveal the dynamic mechanism between the two. Based on panel data from rural areas in central China from 2012 to 2020, this study aims to address this research gap and explore in depth the impact mechanism of the FEE on financial input–output efficiency. The goal of the research is to reveal the key factors that affect the efficiency of rural finance by constructing an analytical framework from four dimensions: economic environment, policy environment, social environment and financial development, in order to provide theoretical support for improving the rural financial ecosystem. The study introduces the perspective of knowledge management into the analytical framework, exploring the key role of knowledge capture, integration and sharing in optimising the rural financial ecosystem, and filling the application gap of knowledge management theory in the field of rural finance. The analysis results showed that the rural economic environment had a positive impact of 0.40 on the efficiency of rural finance. Policy environmental factors had a negative correlation with rural financial efficiency (RFE), but the correlation was not significant ([Formula: see text]). Social environmental factors had an obvious active effect on the efficiency of rural finance ([Formula: see text]). There was an inactive connection between the development level of finance itself and the efficiency of rural finance ([Formula: see text]). Therefore, the rural FEE is positive on the input–output efficiency of finance. The contribution of the research lies in introducing the perspective of knowledge management into the analysis of rural financial ecosystems, revealing the key role of knowledge capture, integration and sharing in optimising financial efficiency, and providing new theoretical support and empirical evidence for the practical application of knowledge management in rural ecosystems.