合并促激增：中国农村银行并购与县域经济韧性

摘要

China’s ongoing policy-driven mergers and acquisitions of rural banks (M&A) are reshaping rural financial intermediation, yet little is known about whether such consolidation enhances economic resilience (ER). To fill this gap, we develop an analytical model to examine the relationship between rural bank M&A and county-level ER. Using a dataset of 2684 Chinese county-level administrative units over 2013–2023, we apply a staggered difference-in-differences framework. The results show that rural bank M&A significantly enhances county-level ER, with an estimated treatment effect of 0.100. This finding remains robust across multiple checks. Mechanism analysis suggests that increased banking concentration partially offsets resilience gains, while a narrower urban-rural income gap and improved agricultural production efficiency support them. Counties with stronger 4 G infrastructure exhibit a statistically significant positive effect, while the positive impact is also observed across the eastern, central, and western regions and for large, medium, and small cities. Further analysis shows that rural bank M&A improves ecological environment quality, with the positive M&A-ER interaction suggesting that consolidation mitigates the negative association between ER and environmental quality. Rural financial consolidation thus serves as a governance complement for sustainable county-level development, aligning banking reform with both ER and ecological goals.