The impact of digital inclusive finance on household carbon emissions: Empirical evidence from China

The rapid development of digital inclusive finance provides both opportunities and challenges for reducing household carbon emissions and achieving China's “carbon neutrality” goal as scheduled. Against this backdrop, this study utilized a sample data from 2957 households across various provinces in China to explore the influence of digital inclusive finance (DIF) on household carbon emissions (HCEs). The empirical results indicate that DIF has a significant positive impact on HCEs. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals the heterogeneity across different sub-samples, including carbon emission types, consumption types, regions, income levels, education levels, and marital status. In addition, mechanism analysis results reveal that consumption scale fully mediates the impact of DIF on HCEs, whereas consumption structure serves as a partial mediator. Our findings shed light on critical policy implications for encouraging the advancement and continuous upgrading of DIF, and raising residents' awareness of green consumption.