Enterprises are the core of social income distribution, and unreasonable intra-firm pay disparity not only suppresses employee motivation and harms long-term business development, but also hinders the realization of common prosperity. Although existing studies have explored the influencing factors of intra-firm pay disparity from perspectives such as enterprise characteristics, industry environment, and policy regulation, there is little exploration from the perspective of financial resources. As an important measure of the national innovation-driven development strategy, whether the technology finance pilot policy can optimize the internal income distribution pattern while improving enterprise efficiency has become an urgent issue to be examined.

Taking A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2023 as the sample, this paper uses a multi-period DID model to empirically test the impact of the technology finance pilot policy on intra-firm pay disparity. The study finds that technology finance significantly reduces intra-firm pay disparity. Mechanism testing shows that technology finance reduces intra-firm pay disparity by promoting technological upgrading, optimizing human capital structure, and strengthening external supervision. Heterogeneity analysis finds that this effect is more significant for enterprises with lower market status, management myopia, and higher investment value, and those located in the eastern region. Further research finds that technology finance mainly reduces excessive pay disparity without affecting the incentive role of reasonable pay disparity, and simultaneously helps alleviate inter-firm pay disparity.

The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it explores how technology finance can promote the optimization of intra-firm pay disparity while improving enterprise efficiency, enriching the understanding of the coordinated application of tournament theory and social fairness theory. Second, it examines the impact of technology finance on intra-firm pay disparity from the perspective of fairness, providing a new approach for understanding and evaluating the micro-level effect of technology finance. Third, it finds that technology finance not only reduces intra-firm pay disparity, but also alleviates inter-firm pay disparity by enhancing the competitiveness of lagging enterprises. This paper offers certain policy insights for further deepening financial services for the real economy, and balancing high-quality development of enterprises at the micro level and social welfare improvement at the macro level.