IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v99y2025ics1059056025002175.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How does digital finance affect imports, exports and trade balance: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Hongya
  • Lin, Xiaobin
  • Zhang, Zhaoyong

Abstract

This paper investigates how digital inclusive finance affects imports and exports as well as foreign trade balance by incorporating the mediating effect of technological innovation and the moderating effect of identified factors. Using panel data from 31 provinces and regions in China, we find robust evidence that digital inclusive finance has a significant and positive effect on China's trade performance, with technological innovation being the important mediator and marketization, industrial structure transformation and upgrading, economic development and financial regulation as the effective moderators. Such effect is found more striking for the central and western regions, confirming the presence of regional heterogeneity. The findings have important policy implications for China's new high-quality development model and digitalization strategy unveiled in 2023.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Hongya & Lin, Xiaobin & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2025. "How does digital finance affect imports, exports and trade balance: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:99:y:2025:i:c:s1059056025002175
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2025.104054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056025002175
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2025.104054?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Digital finance; Imports and exports; Trade balance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • P34 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:99:y:2025:i:c:s1059056025002175. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620165 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.