Research on the impact of digital infrastructure on regional economic gap
Based on the data of 282 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2006 to 2021,the article empirically analyses the impact of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparity and its mechanism of action by using various panel models.The results of the study are as follows.Firstly,digital infrastructure is able to narrow the regional economic gap with significant location,city tier and population density heterogeneity,and this narrowing effect is mainly reflected in the eastern region with a higher level of digital infrastructure development,peripheral cities,and regions with high population density.In the eastern region,the estimated coefficient of digital infrastructure is significantly negative at the 1%level,while the estimated coefficient is not significant for the central and western regions;the digital infrastructure of peripheral cities narrows the regional economic disparity at the 5%significant level,while for central cities,the effect of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparity is not significant;the digital infrastructure of regions with high population density narrows the regional economic disparity at the 1%significant level,while for regions with low population density,the effect of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparity is not significant.Secondly,factor marketization can promote the reasonable and efficient flow of factors such as capital,technology and labor,as well as data,and the synergistic innovation among the factors,which is conducive to the rapid development of digital technology,and thus helps digital infrastructure playing its role in narrowing the regional economic gap.Factor marketisation plays a moderating role in the impact of digital infrastructure on regional economic gaps,and high factor marketisation levels help to increase the narrowing effect of digital infrastructure on regional economic gaps.Thirdly,to further test the reliability of the above empirical results,the article makes the following three attempts.In view of the possible time lag in the impact of digital infrastructure construction on regional economic gaps,the article introduces the first-order lag term of the explanatory variables to observe its dynamic changes.Considering that the"Broadband China"strategy strengthens digital infrastructure,the"Broadband China"strategy is regarded as a quasi-natural experiment to study the impact of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparities.In addition,the construction of digital infrastructure can reduce regional economic disparity,and in turn,regional economic disparity will affect the investment and development of digital infrastructure,and there may be a reverse causal relationship between the two.This paper also adopts the instrumental variable method to mitigate the possible endogeneity problem,and the interaction term between the number of post offices per million people of each prefectural city in 1984 is used as an instrumental variable for digital infrastructure and the number of Internet users in the country in the previous year(which is correlated with the change in time)is used as the instrumental variable for digital infrastructure.With these several attempts,the narrowing effect of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparities remains robust.Fourthly,considering the spatial correlation of digital technology,the article proposes to introduce spatial factors into the benchmark regression model to test the spatial spillover effect of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparity.The article tests the spatial correlation between digital infrastructure and regional economic disparity under the spatial adjacency matrix using the global Moran index.The results of the spatial Durbin model indicate that the impact of digital infrastructure on regional economic disparity has a significant spatial spillover effect,and local digital infrastructure construction has a dampening effect on regional economic disparity in neighbouring regions.Based on this,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations.Firstly,the state should continue to increase investment in scientific and technological research and development,pay attention to the training of research and development personnel,and promote scientific and technological innovation.Secondly,the sinking of digital infrastructure construction should be vigorously promoted,and the construction of digital infrastructure through policies and network regulation should be promoted by government departments around the world,so as to provide strong support for regional economic growth.Thirdly,regional cooperation should be strengthened to achieve inter-regional industrial integration,so as to narrow the regional economic gap,promote the construction of digital infrastructure,strengthening inter-regional information network interconnection,and achieve the sharing and efficient use of data resources to provide support for industrial integration.The research in this paper will help to gain an in-depth understanding of the mechanism of the impact of China's digital infrastructure development on regional economic disparities,and provide reference for narrowing regional economic disparities and promoting coordinated regional development.
digital infrastructureregional economic gapfactor marketisationspatial spillover
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