Digital finance’s driving effect on technological innovation of specialized， refined， distinctive， and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises based on the fixed effects model

Digital finance helps alleviate the financing constraints faced by specialized， refined， distinctive and innovative （SRDI） small and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs） in their technological innovation， assisting them in addressing the bottleneck issues in technological innovation. By employing a fixed-effects model and using 239 SRDI SMEs as samples， the driving effect of digital finance on the technological innovation of these SMEs was explored. The results showed that： Financing constraints played an intermediary role between digital finance and corporate technological innovation， and digital finance promoted corporate technological innovation by alleviating capital constraints； the level of economic development exerted a positive moderating effect between digital finance and corporate technological innovation； the heterogeneity analysis found that digital finance was more effective in promoting the technological innovation of non-state-owned enterprises.