Digital Economy Policy and Regional Public Resource Allocation: Evaluating the Equity Effects of China’s Data Infrastructure Investment

Ruicong Liu ()
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Ruicong Liu: LiaoNing Finance and Trade College

A chapter in Proceedings of the 2026 4th International Conference on Digital Economy and Management Science (CDEMS 2026), 2026, pp 530-539 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Drawing on provincial panel data from 30 mainland provinces over 2013–2022, this study constructs an analytical framework spanning digital infrastructure investment, public service accessibility, and household income distribution, employing a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to examine how data infrastructure investment affects regional equity. Four key results emerge: (1) digital infrastructure investment significantly promotes equalization of public resource allocation but exhibits pronounced spatial spillover asymmetry; (2) eastern provinces consolidate digital resource advantages through agglomeration while western provinces face binding human capital thresholds; (3) fiscal transfer payments and digital inclusive finance together constitute the principal mediation pathway promoting equity; (4) the Broadband China strategy and the East Data West Computing programme have partially narrowed the regional digital divide, though their equalizing effects remain incomplete. The policy implication is that shifting digital infrastructure development from quantitative expansion to qualitative equalization, and establishing a cross-regional coordination mechanism anchored in data-factor marketization, are the critical pathways to equitable public resource allocation in the digital era.

Keywords: digital economy; data infrastructure; public resource allocation; regional equity; Spatial Durbin Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.2991/978-94-6239-699-9_57

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