Abstract Under the realistic background of China′s economy from high-speed growth stage to high-quality development stage, this paper tries to clarify whether fintech is conducive to the high-quality development of China's urbanization, and then explore the mechanism of this impact. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China during 2011 to 2018, this paper constructs a Spatial Durbin Model to empirically study the impact of fintech on the high-quality development of urbanization and its formation mechanism. The results show that there is a significant positive spatial correlation in the high-quality development level of inter-regional urbanization. On the whole, the impact of fintech on the high-quality development of urbanization in this region shows significant U-shaped nonlinear characteristics, but the spatial spillover effect is not obvious. And the influence of fintech on the high-quality development of urbanization varies greatly between regions. There is a significant U-shaped effect in the central and western regions, but there is no such non-linear relationship in the eastern region. Further mechanism analysis shows that fintech affects the high-quality development of urbanization through two channels. One is technological innovation, the other is public financial expenditure in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection. Therefore, all provinces should formulate targeted fintech development strategies, actively improve the efficiency of technological innovation, and increase government financial support to energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises, so as to promote the high-quality development of urbanization.
2022, Vol. 39 
