Digital Financial Inclusion and Import Quality Upgrading: Evidence From Chinese Intermediate Products

Shuangshuang Liu

Review of Development Economics, 2026, vol. 30, issue 2, 1278-1298

Abstract: This study empirically investigates how intermediate import quality responds to the development of digital financial inclusion (DFI) using China's DFI Index obtained from Peking University and Chinese Customs data for 2011–2019. The results reveal that DFI has significantly promoted the import quality upgrading of Chinese manufacturing intermediate products. Further mechanism tests find that the quality improvements are mainly explained by the financial constraints' reduction effects. Meanwhile, DFI will boost import quality through both intensive and extensive margins. The heterogeneity analyses show that DFI mainly improves the import quality of intermediate products sourced from countries with higher economic developments and better institutional qualities. Besides, cities that are geographically closer to other relatively higher‐DFI cities are more responsive to the development of DFI. Moreover, compared to those capital‐intensive imports, products in Chinese labor‐intensive industries have experienced greater quality upgrading, especially for those by general trade mode. These findings are of great significance for actively supporting the development of DFI, and thus better releasing its policy dividends to the quality upgrading of intermediate imports.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.70057

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:30:y:2026:i:2:p:1278-1298

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1363-6669

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Development Economics is currently edited by E. Kwan Choi

More articles in Review of Development Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().