Financial institutional development and innovation: the dual contingent effects of digitalisation and human capital

Despite the key role played by finance in fostering innovation, limited research examines how financial institution development (FID) influences innovation and under what conditions this effect operates. Drawing on financial intermediation theory and the resource-based view (RBV), we develop a moderation framework to assess the impact of financial institution development on innovation while accounting for the contingent roles of human capital and digitalisation. Using panel data from 1,128 observations across sub-Saharan African countries between 2000 and 2023, and employing fixed effects, two-stage instrumental variable, and quantile regression techniques, we find that financial institution development is positively associated with innovation in baseline models. Importantly, this relationship is conditional. The interaction between FID and human capital, as well as between FID and digitalisation, is positive and significant, indicating that financial development enhances innovation more strongly where complementary capabilities are present. Quantile regression results reveal substantial heterogeneity: while the direct effect of FID is not uniformly significant across the innovation distribution, its moderating effects become increasingly significant at higher innovation quantiles. These findings indicate that financial development operates mainly as an enabling infrastructure that enhances innovation in countries with sufficient absorptive capacity rather than universally promoting innovation. The main practical implication of our finding is that strengthening financial institutions alone is inadequate; it should be accompanied by coordinated investments in human capital and digitalisation to translate financial development into sustained innovation gains in sub-Saharan Africa.