Financial Inclusion,Financial Constraint Relief and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is an important driving force for promoting the high-quality development of the Chinese economy.According to relevant statistical data,in recent years,small and medium-sized enterprises(including individual businesses)have created over 60%of GDP,provided over 50%of taxes,and completed over 70%of invention patents.However,compared with state-owned enterprises,small and medium-sized enterprises,individuals and other entrepreneurial entities find it difficult to enjoy fair treatment in terms of finan-cial resource availability,and the problems with difficult and expensive financing have become a huge bottleneck that restricts entrepreneurial vitality.With the concepts of sharing and fairness,financial inclusion(inclusive finance)aims to provide effective financial services with affordable costs to all sectors of the economy.Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee,China has gradually increased its efforts in building financial inclusion.Undoubtedly,improving the financial accessibility of vulnerable groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals is an important goal for China's development of inclusive finance.However,in practice,due to factors such as government regulatory misalignment and distorted financial structure,China has not yet formed an efficient financial inclusion mechanism.Whether financial inclusion can effectively alleviate financing constraints,and thus release entrepreneurial vitality and stimulate entrepreneurship remains to be explored.There is serious discrimination in credit ownership in China,that is,private enterprises and individuals with more entrepreneurial and innovative spirit are not usually favored by banks and other financial institutions.This financial exclusion phenomenon greatly restricts the entrepreneurial vitality of private enterprises and individuals,and is not conducive to the enhancement of entrepreneurship.Financial exclusion has given rise to the emergence and vigorous development of financial inclusion.Compared with traditional finance,the advantages of financial inclusion lie in the following aspects:On the one hand,financial inclusion lowers the threshold for financial services,which effectively increases the accessibility of financial resources for all levels of society,especially for vulnerable groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises,individuals and farmers.On the other hand,financial inclusion strengthens the information search ability of financial intermediaries,thereby alleviates the problem of information asymmetry in the financial market and helps to reduce financing information and transac-tion costs.Therefore,financial inclusion can stimulate the entrepreneurial vitality of enterprises and individuals,and thus enhance the entrepreneurship.This paper intends to deeply explore the impact and mechanism of finan-cial inclusion on entrepreneurship.The conclusions not only can expand the research boundary between financial inclusion and entrepreneurship,but also has important practical significance for promoting financial innovation and enhancing entrepreneurship in China.The marginal contributions of this paper are as follows:Firstly,by constructing a two-stage career choice model that integrates financial inclusion,we explore the mechanism of financial inclusion on promoting entrepreneurship from the dimensions of credit quantity effect and cost effect.Secondly,by constructing the panel Tobit model,we empirically test the impact of financial inclusion on provin-cial entrepreneurship in China,as well as the policy effects of the 2013 financial inclusion development strategy.Once again,by using the mediation effect model,we identify the transmission mechanism from financial inclusion to financing constraint relief,and then to entrepreneurship.Finally,from the two dimensions of urban-rural differences and industry differences,we explore the heterogeneity effects of financial inclusion.The results show that,financial inclusion promotes entrepreneurship,and financial inclusive development strategy in 2013 strengthens the promotion effect of financial inclusion on entrepreneurship.The mechanism test shows that,financing constraint is an important channel for financial inclusion to influence entrepreneurship.The heterogeneity analysis shows that,the positive effect of financial inclusion on entrepreneurship of urban entrepre-neurs is stronger than that of rural ones,and financial inclusion has not yet effectively narrowed the gap between them.In the meantime,there are different industry effects of financial inclusion on entrepreneurship,which improve service industry the most and manufacturing industry more,but construction industry the least.
financial inclusionentrepreneurshipcareer choice model