Digital Technology and Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Experiences of the People’s Republic of China

Yiping Huang, Han Qiu and Jingyi Wang
Additional contact information
Jingyi Wang: Asian Development Bank Institute

No 1276, ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute

Abstract: Digital technology has rapidly transformed the economy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) over the past decade, especially in areas of e-commerce and digital finance. In many ways, digital technology changes the pattern of economic operation, as it enlarges business scale, increases economic efficiency, improves user experiences, reduces operating costs, and controls financial risks. Digital technology served as an important economic stabilizer during COVID-19, by accurately tracking down confirmed infected cases, moving a lot of economic activities online ,and issuing consumption coupons by local governments. These not only enabled the PRC to be the first to come out of the pandemic and to achieve impressive V-shaped recovery, but also with 5G and other technological and infrastructural development. The digital economy in the PRC will likely grow more rapidly in the coming years, bringing about more fundamental changes. However, the authorities will also need to address a wide range of policy issues to ensure the smooth development of the digital economy, including the easing of the data inequality problem, protection of individual rights, and regulation of platform behavior.

Keywords: digital technology; digital economy; COVID-19; PRC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E60 G23 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2021-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-mac and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/726171/adbi-wp1276.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:adbiwp:1276

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute Kasumigaseki Building 8F, 3-2-5, Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6008, Japan. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ADB Institute ().