Descriptive statistics.

Air pollution poses significant health and economic challenges globally and specifically affecting China. Although air pollution has been associated with decreased productivity and biases in decision-making, its effect on the development of digital finance has received limited attention in the literature. By employing city-level data from China covering the period from 2013 to 2020, this research examines the impact of air pollution on digital finance. The results show that deteriorating air quality has a negligible impact on digitalization, whereas it has a negative impact on financial inclusion, measured by usage and coverage metrics. The negative impact on financial inclusion is more noticeable in economically weaker and less developed urban areas and low R&D than in developed areas and economically robust cities. The mechanism analysis shows that air pollution reduces human capital quality, resulting in a decline in financial inclusivity. These findings have significant policy implications, underscoring the necessity for approaches that simultaneously tackle air pollution and foster financial innovation.

大气污染在全球范围内带来了严峻的健康与经济挑战，对中国的影响尤为显著。尽管已有研究表明大气污染与生产力下降、决策偏差存在关联，但现有学术文献对其影响数字金融（digital finance）发展的相关研究却较为匮乏。本研究采用2013至2020年中国城市层面的数据，考察了大气污染对数字金融的影响效应。研究结果显示，空气质量恶化对数字化转型的影响微乎其微，但会对以使用规模与覆盖范围为衡量指标的金融普惠（financial inclusion）产生负向影响。相较于经济发达、研发投入充足的城市，这种负向影响在经济薄弱、欠发达以及研发投入较低的城市中更为显著。机制分析表明，大气污染会降低人力资本质量，进而导致金融普惠水平下滑。本研究结论具有重要的政策启示价值，凸显了同时推进大气污染治理与促进金融创新的必要性。