Digital Financial Inclusion and Sustainable Growth of Small and Micro Enterprises—Evidence Based on China’s New Third Board Market Listed Companies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper investigates an intersting topic pertaining the impact on financial inclusion on sustainability of growth. Despite the promising implications of the paper and an overall sound methodological framework I rise a couple of points that might bring improvements to the paper.
First, the literature review section sholud be expanded. In particular the hypothesis development appears to be poorly argumented at light of previous literature. The theory of financial constraints (which is not properly addressed in the literature review section) could be a feasible starting point for building a strong link between financial inclusion and sustainability. Given that financial constraints are a central part in the empirical strategy, a stronger theorerical grounding is required when developing research question and hyp.
Second, the authors find that the development of digital financial inclusion helps promote the sustainable growth of small and micro enterprises. The enabling mechanism is the impact on financial constraints. However, it is not clear which driving forces lead the effects of financial inclusion. The index the authors use should be explained in much more detail. Reading through, it is not clear how it is constructed and which features it is designed to capture so as it is difficult to grasp how actually the efffect of Greater financial inclusion works. It is just a technical matter (i.e., easer accessability to technology) or is it a much more substatntial issue related to the structure of the financial industry (i.e., FinTech enabling the rising of new players that compete with the traditional banking sector and complement the services supplied by incumbents?)
Author Response
Please see the attachment！Thanks!
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments on "Digital Financial Inclusion and Sustainable Growth 2 of Small and Micro Enterprises—Evidence Based on 3 China's NEEQ Listed Companies”.
the article does not provide sufficiently original and new contribution to its theme and the arguments, results and conclusions appear not to be adequately justified.
The aim of this paper is: i) to “discuss the impact of digital financial inclusion on the sustainable growth of small and micro enterprises” (lines. 77-78); ii) to test “the impact mechanism of digital financial inclusion regarding financing constraints” (line 80) and; iii) “to examine the heterogeneous impact of digital financial inclusion on the sustainable growth of small and micro businesses in different property rights, high-tech properties, and competitive markets, providing detailed empirical evidence for integration of finance and the real economy, and making reasonable sustainable growth decisions.” (lines 81-83).
The social, economic and cultural effects of digital financial inclusion development are still too little know. This is particularly the case for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). How do these companies appropriate these new financing tools? How do these new tools complement conventional funding, informal sources of funding? There are many questions.
Unfortunately, this article does not answer these questions. It does not allow us to learn more about the dynamics linked to the development of financial digital services, nor to better understand how SMEs can commit to sustainable economic growth.
Methodologically, there are great biases.
This article does not provide a historical overview of the provision of digital financial services in China; it could help us to understand better the link between access to digital financial services and the sustainable growth of SMEs. In the same vein, it is regrettable that authors do not provide examples on how access to digital financial services “can also enable small and micro enterprises to obtain financial resources support” (line 153). Etc.
In the literature review, the authors return to the concept of “sustainable growth” but do not mention the other dimensions of this Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) number 8 of the United Nations, with which this concept is linked, such as decent work, unemployment, etc.
A basic premise for the authors is that SMEs are part of a vulnerable group. “However, under the background of the rapid development of China's digital financial inclusion, no research has been conducted to analyze and explore the driving factors of sustainable growth of vulnerable groups such as small and micro enterprises” (lines 134-136). This premise is groundless and offers a simplistic vision of the economic world. Then, in the rest of the article, the authors never return to this idea of vulnerability and how availability, access and use of digital financial services by SMEs could help them to be less vulnerable.
More importantly, the authors establish statistical links between a digital financial inclusion index and a database comprising 11,000 SMEs spread over the whole of Chinese territory. At no time do we know if these companies have benefited from access to these digital financial services. And if so, the reader does not know how much of these digital financial tools account for the company. It is a very important bias. The reader also does not know how representative the sample of SMEs is. Etc.
This article does not provide detailed examples which could compensate methodological limits. Moreover, this article does not bring new material, data, or field work information which could help us to understand links between sustainable economic growth of SMEs in China and availability, access and use of digital financial services.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.Thanks!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper covers an interesting and significant topic of the linkages between digital financial inclusion and sustainable growth of SMEs, using the case of Chinese listed companies. The overall quality of the paper is very high, it is based on the sound methodology and the results are interpreted correctly. However, there are some minor issues that could be improved.
- Introduction should provide some information about the research sample, time period of the analysis and research methods.
- Authors should present NEEQ in more detail.
- More details about the estimation methods applied should be given in the methodological section.
- I suggest different presentation of the tables, using the formatting of the journal - in the current form they are difficult to grasp.
- Some elements should be added to the last section: limitations of the analysis and directions of the future study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.Thanks!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper investigated the impact and mechanism of the digital financial inclusion on the sustainable growth of small and micro enterprises in China. Digital financial inclusion is a current research topic.
Some aspects need to improve:
- The limits of the paper are not very clearly described.
- Is necessary to verify the references because some are not described according to the instructions for authors.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.Thanks!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Changes made to the article by the authors are significant. These changes respond to comments made previously.
Methodology and resuts are now adequately described.
