Effects of AI-Empowered Digital Inclusive Finance on the Income Growth of County-Level Farmers in Yunnan Province: An Empirical Test Based on County-Level Panel Data

{'en': "Using panel data of 119 counties (cities, districts) in Yunnan Province from 2015 to 2022, this paper constructs an AI-empowered digital inclusive finance index and examines its effect on county-level farmer income growth and the underlying channels with a two-way fixed-effects model. The results show that AI-empowered digital inclusive finance significantly promotes farmer income growth: a one-unit increase in the index raises rural residents' per capita disposable income by about 0.12% on average, and this conclusion remains robust after instrumental-variable estimation, replacement of the dependent variable, winsorization, and system GMM estimation. Mechanism tests indicate that AI-empowered digital inclusive finance mainly works through three channels—easing credit constraints, popularizing digital payment, and expanding e-commerce channels for agricultural products—whose combined mediation contribution exceeds one half. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the income effect is more pronounced for farmers in poverty-stricken and mountainous counties, and mainly manifests as growth in operating and wage income. Accordingly, policy recommendations are proposed, including deepening county-level intelligent risk control, improving rural digital infrastructure, developing e-commerce for plateau-featured agricultural products, and strengthening county-level financial risk monitoring."}