The Digital Economy and the Regional Economic Gap: An Inverted U-shaped Relationship

Abstract

As a new economic form, the digital economy is profoundly changing China, and clarifying the relationship between the digital economy and the regional economic gap is of great practical significance for coordinating regional economic development. Based on the perspective of new economic geography, the digital economy is incorporated into the core marginal model, and the impact of digital economy development on the change of regional economic gap under long-term equilibrium conditions is deduced Provincial panel data are used to support this. The study found that with the continuous development of the digital economy, the regional economic gap showed an inverted U-shaped trend of first expanding and then narrowing; Considering regional heterogeneity, the inverted U-shaped impact of the digital economy in the eastern, central and western regions on the regional economic gap is still obvious. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions from the perspective of "the digital economy provides a solution to alleviate the imbalance and incongruity of regional development".