Author(s): Yaojun Fan
Effectively addressing the financial development dilemma faced by rural areas has been a worldwide challenge. Based on the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) and the Digital Inclusive Finance Index database, this paper investigates the impact of digital finance on farmers' productive formal credit demand and consumer formal credit demand by establishing a panel Probit model and an IV-Probit model with the introduction of instrumental variables to control for endogeneity. The results show that the development of digital finance has a significant dampening effect on farmers' productive formal credit demand and a significant promoting impact on farmers' consumer legal credit demand. Furthermore, the results of the robustness test also confirm the stability and reliability of the findings. At the same time, the heterogeneity of the two types of formal credit demand of farmers is further explored in this paper.