Does digital financial inclusion alleviate poverty? This study investigates this question by integrating the Digital Financial Inclusion Index of Peking University with microdata from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to examine how the expansion of digital financial inclusion affects household multidimensional poverty in China. Anchored in Amartya Sen ’ s capability approach and operationalized through the Alkire–Foster (A–F) framework, the study identifies multidimensional poverty across five key dimensions: income, health, education, insurance, and living standards. Probit models are employed to estimate how digital financial inclusion influences both the likelihood and structure of multidimensional poverty, while instrumental variable techniques are used to address potential endogeneity. Beyond the average effects, the study further explores the mechanisms through which digital financial inclusion contributes to poverty alleviation, focusing on three channels—promoting household consumption, increasing financial investment, and enhancing access to credit. The results reveal that digital financial inclusion significantly mitigates multidimensional poverty, particularly by improving income, living standards, and health outcomes, though its effects on education and insurance are limited. These findings underscore the transformative role of digital finance in fostering inclusive growth, suggesting that policies expanding digital financial infrastructure and literacy can amplify its poverty-reducing effects and advance equitable development.

This paper evaluates how purchases of wealth management products (WMPs) influence the performance of Chinese non-financial listed companies. Our main finding is that purchasing WMPs enhances firm performance, but the relationship shows an inverted U-shape: when WMP investment exceeds 62.57% of total assets, its positive effects diminish and ultimately harm performance. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the performance gains are concentrated among non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), while state-owned enterprises (SOEs) experience no significant benefits or even negative effects. Furthermore, the positive impact of WMPs is more pronounced in firms with higher leverage, abundant cash holdings or lower top-shareholder concentration.