Fintech Regulation and Corporate Digital Transformation: Evidence from the Regulatory Sandbox Pilot in China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/mbr27a96Keywords:
Fintech Regulation; Digital Transformation; Financing Constraints; Signaling Effect.Abstract
Against the backdrop of rapidly evolving Fintech and its accelerating integration with traditional finance, how financial regulation shapes corporate innovation has emerged as an important issue. Yet the mechanisms through which Fintech regulation promotes or inhibits corporate digital transformation remain underexplored. Drawing on a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2022 and exploiting the "Regulatory Sandbox" pilot as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of Fintech regulation on corporate digital transformation. The results show that Fintech regulation significantly promotes corporate digital transformation, supporting the signaling effect hypothesis. This conclusion remains robust to alternative measures of the dependent variable, parallel trend tests, PSM-DID, and placebo tests. Further analyses reveal that: (1) the promoting effect is more pronounced among firms with lower fixed-asset intensity, lower audit quality, and lower analyst coverage; (2) Fintech regulation facilitates digital transformation by alleviating firms' financing constraints. This study not only provides evidence that regulatory policy influences corporate digital transformation through the financing-environment channel, but also demonstrates that effective Fintech regulation establishes an institutional foundation conducive to digital transformation.
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