Digital financial inclusion and illegal fundraising in China

Jennifer Lai, Jing Xie, Shiyun Cao and Hao Zhang

Applied Economics, 2022, vol. 54, issue 48, 5575-5590

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of digital financial inclusion on illegal fundraising activities in China. From the China Judgments Online website, we extract data of criminal court cases of illegal fundraising from 2013 to 2019, during which both the illegal fundraising court cases and the development of digital finance displayed a rising trend. We then evaluate if digital financial inclusion may have worsened illegal fundraising activities. We find that digital financial inclusion has a positive effect on illegal fundraising activities. This effect remains robust under alternative measures of the intensity of illegal fundraising activities and when instrumental variable estimations are used to tackle potential endogeneity problems. Furthermore, convenient banking services are an important channel through which digital financial inclusion exerts its positive impact on illegal fundraising. Therefore, while active promotions of digital finance could benefit economic development, it is also necessary to timely improve the supervision of emerging finance to guard against financial risks.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2047601

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