Digital Finance and Advanced Manufacturing Industry Development in China: A Coupling Coordination Analysis

The coordinated development of digital finance and the advanced manufacturing industry is vital for high-quality economic development. Based on the provincial data of China from 2012 to 2020, this study applied the coupling coordination degree model, σ convergence model and Dagum–Gini coefficient decomposition method to analyze the coupling coordination level, convergence characteristics, spatial differences and sources of digital financial and advanced manufacturing industry development in China. The results show that the coupling coordination level between the two has crossed from the run-in transition stage to the coordinated development stage and shows a rapid growing trend. The coupling coordination degree of the eastern region is the highest, followed by the central and western regions. It has an obvious convergence trend, and the overall difference is significantly reduced. The intra-regional difference of coupling coordination degree in the western region is the largest, indicating the comparatively larger gap in the development of digital finance and the advanced manufacturing industry among western provinces. The inter-regional difference between the east–west regions is the largest and is the main source of overall differences, which proves the fact of unbalanced development between regions. It is suggested to adopt differentiated regional policies to promote the coordinated development of digital finance and the advanced manufacturing industry