Summary of descriptive features.

With the rapid growth and wide application of digital technology, enterprises have entered the digital era with both opportunities and challenges existing. Mergers and acquisitions are one of the most efficient ways to integrate resources and achieve profit growth, giving enterprises advantages in competing in the new mode of economic growth. Based on this, this research tries to explore whether the development of digital finance will contribute to the emergence of M&As activities through combining M&As data of the Chinese stock market with the digital finance inclusion index between 2012 and 2020. The results show that the development of digital finance largely influences M&As activities through lower acquirers’ financial constraints. We further replace digital finance with three sub-indexes including coverage breadth, usage depth, and digitalization level to explore the impact of different dimensions of digital finance on M&As. Results show that coverage breadth plays a more important role. In addition, heterogeneity tests reveal that the relationship between the development of digital finance and M&As activities varies significantly. The influences of digital finance on private and western and central enterprises are more significant compared with state-owned and eastern enterprises. According to the study, since the development of digital finance can be an efficient way to ease financial constraints and boost M&As activities, the government should promote the development of digital finance while companies strive to make the most use of it.随着数字技术的迅猛发展与广泛应用，企业已然迈入数字时代，机遇与挑战并存。并购（Mergers and Acquisitions，简称M&A）是整合资源、实现利润增长的高效路径之一，可助力企业在新型经济增长模式中获得竞争优势。基于此，本研究结合2012-2020年中国股市并购数据与数字普惠金融指数（Digital Finance Inclusion Index），旨在探究数字金融发展是否会推动并购活动的产生。研究结果表明，数字金融发展可通过降低并购方的融资约束，对并购活动产生显著影响。本研究进一步将数字金融替换为覆盖广度、使用深度与数字化程度三个子指数，以探究数字金融不同维度对并购活动的影响。结果显示，覆盖广度的影响更为显著。此外，异质性检验结果表明，数字金融发展与并购活动之间的关系存在显著异质性：相较于国有企业与东部地区企业，数字金融对民营企业、中西部地区企业的影响更为显著。综上，鉴于数字金融发展可有效缓解融资约束、推动并购活动，政府应推动数字金融发展，企业则应充分利用其发展红利。