ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Climate-Smart Food Systems
This article is part of the Research TopicBuilding Resilience Through Sustainability: Innovative Strategies In Agricultural SystemsView all 34 articles
Exploring the Digital Financial Inclusion of Green Total Factor Productivity in Forestry
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jiangxi University of Technology, Nanchang, China
- 2Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China
- 3Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study empirically examines the influence of digital financial inclusion (DFI) on forestry green total factor productivity (FGTFP) in China. Based on panel data from 30 provinces spanning the period from 2013 to 2019, FGTFP is measured using the super SBM-Malmquist-Luenberger index. The Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index is employed as a proxy to estimate the effects of DFI through fixed-effects regressions, while mediation and threshold mechanisms are also evaluated. The empirical results indicate that DFI significantly improves FGTFP, although this promotion exhibits a nonlinear and single-threshold pattern based on the level of technological innovation. Further mechanism analysis reveals that DFI enhances FGTFP by optimizing the industrial structure and strengthening technological innovation. Regarding regional heterogeneity, the positive effect is significant in the eastern region but remains insignificant in the central and western regions. Consequently, it is suggested that policies should prioritize digital infrastructure and inclusive finance penetration in lagging regions, utilizing targeted funds to accelerate forestry technological innovation and service-oriented industrial upgrading.
Keywords: Digital financial inclusion, Forestry green total factor productivity, Forestry resource utilization, Industrial andtechnology innovation, Super SBM-ML Model
Received: 05 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Gao, Huang, Huang, Ning and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xin Luo
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.