Abstract:
Empowering rural ecological livability through digital inclusive finance is an important approach to improving the efficiency of rural financial resource allocation, advancing rural modernization, and contributing to the Beautiful China initiative. Based on panel data from 36 prefecture-level cities in Northeast China from 2011 to 2022, this paper employs the entropy-weighted TOPSIS model to measure the level of rural ecological livability and constructs fixed-effects models, mediation models, and heterogeneity analysis models to systematically examine the impact and mechanism of digital inclusive finance on rural ecological livability. The findings reveal that: 1) The overall level of rural ecological livability in Northeast China has steadily improved, yet regional disparities remain significant, exhibiting a “bimodal” pattern centered on Shenyang and Harbin; 2) Digital inclusive finance significantly enhances rural ecological livability, and this effect is partially mediated through the promotion of urbanization and industrial structure upgrading; 3) The facilitative effect of digital inclusive finance is more pronounced in ecologically fragile areas, and its three dimensions (coverage breadth, usage depth, and digitization level) all exert positive impacts, though with diminishing marginal effects. Based on these conclusions, policy recommendations are proposed, including strengthening digital inclusive finance infrastructure, enhancing its synergistic role in urbanization and industrial upgrading, and optimizing a gradient and differentiated supply system.