The Spatial Effect of Financial Innovation on Intellectualized Transformational Upgrading of Manufacturing Industry: An Empirical Evidence from China

Abstract

Financial innovation is a powerful source to promote the intellectualized transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. At present, the influence mechanism behind the impact of financial innovation on the manufacturing industry is still unclear and lacks quantitative analysis. This paper selects the representative indicators to study the spatial effect of financial innovation on the intelligent transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry based on China’s provincial panel data from 2008 to 2019 by using entropy method, the DEA model, and the spatial econometric model. The results show the following: (1) the overall level of the intellectualized transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry has gradually improved, but the spatial distribution is uneven, which has a strong spatial correlation with financial innovation; (2) according to the estimation of the spatial Dobbin model, financial innovation has a significant positive spillover effect on the intellectualization of the manufacturing industry, not only in the region in which it is located, but also in adjacent regions, and the former is greater than the latter; (3) consumption demand, capital allocation, and technological innovation are the three main mediating mechanisms. Finally, according to the findings, we put forward some suggestions and conclusions. This paper provides a positive reference for further promoting the intelligent upgrading of the manufacturing industry from the perspective of financial innovation.