Common Prosperity Effect of the Digital Economy in the Context of Chinese Modernization:Methods and Evidence
Achieving common prosperity for all has always been an unwavering pursuit of the Chinese government and society.Prior to the reform and opening-up era,the distribution tended to be characterized by"common"rather than"prosperity,"and it could even be said that this"common'hindered"prosperity".The reform and opening-up policy of"letting some people get rich first"has achieved China's economic miracle and continuously improved the living stan-dards of the people.However,the wealth gap has continued to widen.It can be said that while progress has been made in prosperity,"common"has not been fully achieved,and thus there is still a considerable distance to go for common pros-perity in China.How to balance or even make choices between"common"and"prosperity",the relationship between"having one's cake and eating it too",is a major challenge that governments,societies,and academia,especially in China,must face in the past,present,and future.Unfortunately,existing literature worldwide has not constructed a common prosperity indicator consistent with the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,making it impossible to research common prosper-ity.Therefore,this paper uses per capita income to represent"prosperity",the national Gini coefficient to represent"in-equality",and(1-Gini coefficient)to represent"common".Building upon Sen's(1976)welfare economics theory,this paper organically combines the two to construct a common prosperity indicator.Furthermore,drawing on the Mincer equation and Shapley's(1957)cooperative game theory,we propose a unified analytical framework to study the impact of any income determinant on common prosperity in the context of Chinese modernization.This is the theoretical and meth-odological contribution of this paper.Currently,the surging Fourth Industrial Revolution is impacting all aspects of the economy,society,and human life,and the profound impact of the digital economy on"prosperity","common",and"common prosperity"is self-evident.In December 2023,the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Implementation Plan for Promoting Com-mon Prosperity through the Digital Economy,which clearly stated the goal of using digital means to promote balanced and sufficient development,enabling all the people to share the dividends of the digital era and contribute to achieving common prosperity in high-quality development.Clearly,focusing on the impact of the digital economy on common pros-perity is not only of academic significance but also of profound practical and policy significance.This paper uses micro-level individual and city-level data to estimate China's level of common prosperity and ana-lyze the impact of the digital economy on common prosperity for all.The research findings are as follows:(1)The digital economy has a significant growth effect,which is achieved by improving production efficiency and promoting innovation rather than extending working hours.(2)In a static sense,the digital economy is an important source of income inequal-ity,especially in terms of its positive contribution to income disparities between high and low-income groups,between ur-ban and rural areas,and between groups with different educational levels.(3)In a dynamic sense,as the digital economy continues to flourish,its unequal effects gradually weaken while the growth effect remains significant,overall contribut-ing to promoting common prosperity.These are the empirical contributions of this paper.The digital economy and common prosperity are mutually reinforcing.However,this paper only provides a prelimi-nary exploration of the relationship between the two.Further research is needed to refine and expand the indicators,ana-lytical framework,model estimation,and policy implications.Specifically,the common prosperity indicator constructed in this paper relies on the Gini coefficient,which is just one measure of"inequality"and differs in nature from other indi-cators.Additionally,the framework of this paper can be used to analyze the impact of other factors such as cross-border trade and investment on common prosperity,as well as the influence of factors like the confirmation of land rights on common prosperity in rural China.
Digital EconomyCommon ProsperityInequality Decomposition based on Regression Equations
万方数据
维普
