A Study on the Measurement and Spatial Differentiation of Regional Digital Economy Development Level Based on Panel Data Model
Main Article Content
Abstract
The digital economy is now a key driver of regional economic development, yet the extent of digital economic development differs greatly by region, and the spatial structure of the digital economy is not well understood. There is an urgent need to have a scientific measurement system and study of spatial differentiation patterns. The present paper develops a system of evaluation index which includes four dimensions: digital infrastructure, digital industrialization, industrial digitalization and digital governance. The index weights are calculated by the entropy weight method, and the index of the level of digital economic development of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China between 2015 and 2023 is measured by using a panel data model. These findings are presented through the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) to demonstrate the presence of spatial clustering in terms of Moran I and Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and a spatial panel econometric model is constructed to determine the factors at work. The results show that the overall score of the national digital economy development level increased from 0.342 in 2015 to 0.718 in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 10.3%; the spatial distribution shows a gradient pattern of “high in the east and low in the west”, with an average of 0.802 in the eastern region, 0.651 in the central region, and 0.543 in the western region; the global Moran index is 0.426 ( < 0.01 ), showing a significant positive spatial correlation; and three high-high agglomeration areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta and a low-low agglomeration area of five northwestern provinces were identified.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
References
M. Y. Teplyakova and M. D. Khabib, “Study of the digital economy development: regional aspect,” Vestnik Universiteta, no. 4, pp. 137-143, 2020, doi: 10.26425/1816-4277-2020-4-137-143.
M. Wang, “Executive social connection, regional digital economy development, and enterprise digital transformation,” Sustainability, pp. 16, 2024, doi: 10.3390/su16156445.
A. Sidorov and P. Senchenko, “Regional digital economy: assessment of development levels,” 2020, doi: 10.3390/math8122143.
G. Salimova, A. Ableeva, R. Gusmanov, et al., “Employment in the digital economy development: regional clustering,” Public Organization Review, vol. 24, no. 1, 2024, doi: 10.1007/s11115-023-00746-w.
Z. Mengke, H. Yan, B. Yuan, et al., “Research on the decoupling effect of China’s regional digital economy development and carbon emissions,” SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 163, pp. 8, 2023, doi: 10.1051/shsconf/202316301027.
Z. Zhong, L. Zhou, S. Li, et al., “Research on the effect of digital economy development level on regional innovation,” Proceedings of the 2024 3rd International Conference on Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy, pp. 582-587, 2024, doi: 10.1145/3672919.3673021.
T. Krasikova, “Regional university in digital economy,” European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences, pp. 361-367, 2020, doi: 10.15405/epsbs.2020.12.47.
M. Liang and H. Chen, “Digital economy development, regional openness, and high-quality foreign trade,” Finance Research Letters, pp. 81, 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107469.
M. C. Wen and W. L. Song, “Research on digital economy and high quality development of regional economy,” Value, Function, Cost, vol. 4, no. 1, 2024, doi: 10.54517/vfc.v4i1.2614.
H. Lamia, “Assessment of efficiency in digital economy development in Tunisia: a regional analysis,” International Journal of Social Sciences & Economic Environment, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 01-08, 2022, doi: 10.53882/ijssee.2022.0701001.