Conditional Effects of Digital Financial Inclusion Policies on Rural Household Entrepreneurship Evidence from Asset Constraints, Moderated Difference‑in‑Differences, and Causal Forests

Abstract

This study examines which rural households translate digital financial inclusion policies into entrepreneurial action. A balanced 2010–2022 China Family Panel Studies panel is linked to provincial digital finance, digital infrastructure, policy-pilot, and macroeconomic data, yielding a 2012–2022 rural sample. The empirical strategy combines a pre-policy asset-constraint moderated difference-in-differences design, an event study, and an honest causal forest. Average effects of the aggregate digital financial inclusion index and binary policy exposure are unstable. Policy intensity, measured by the number of active related pilots in each province-year, significantly increases entrepreneurship among households with low baseline assets: each additional pilot raises their entrepreneurship probability by about 1.85 percentage points, while the effect for higher-asset households is insignificant. The result survives a stricter entrepreneurship definition and the exclusion of centrally administered municipalities. Post-policy effects for low-asset households reach 5.38–5.74 percentage points, and the complete effect is 7.63 percentage points for low-asset households with baseline internet access. Causal-forest profiles identify younger, healthier, digitally connected households with greater labor supply as high responders. The findings support targeted policy expansion centered on asset constraints and minimum digital access.