The Impact of Digital Finance on High-Quality Development of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle

This paper developed a comprehensive evaluation system that was able to quantify the levels of highquality development across the cities within the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, and investigate the impact that digital finance had on the cities’ high-quality development and the underlying mechanisms through which it achieved this. This comprehensive evaluation system was constructed using statistical data from these cities for the period 2014 to 2020 while also taking China’s highquality development philosophy into account. The key findings revealed that:(a) Digital finance was able to significantly promote high-quality development in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle;(b) Digital finance had a significant positive effect in promoting innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared development;(c) Digital finance was able to stimulate the high-quality development in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle by boosting entrepreneurial dynamism;(d) Digital finance had a significant impact on the high-quality development of the axis areas, while its impact was less discernible in non-axis areas. The insights from this research offer a deeper understanding of the factors that drive high-quality development, the role digital finance plays, and the mechanisms through which digital finance is able to propel high-quality development at the city cluster scale.