The effects of digital economy on manufacturing resource allocation efficiency across Chinese cities: a spatial economic perspective

Yao Zhao, Yongjie Zheng and Zhuolan Fang

Applied Economics, 2025, vol. 57, issue 57, 9837-9852

Abstract: The development of digital economy provides significant impacts on spatial distribution of industries. Using microdata from Chinese manufacturing enterprises and adopting a spatial economic perspective, this study reveals that the digital economy exerts non-linear impacts on resource allocation. As the level of urban digital economy improves, the efficiency of manufacturing resource allocation shows an inverted U-shaped trend, and high hierarchy cities exhibit higher critical values. The study finds a positive spatial correlation in manufacturing resource allocation efficiency across cities; however, the growth of digital economy in neighbouring cities may lead to backwash effects and impede local improvements in allocation efficiency. The mechanism analysis indicates that the digital economy primarily affects spatial resource allocation through urban agglomeration economies and diseconomies. Consequently, economic agents and policy makers in cities should consider the dual effects of ‘location optimization’ and ‘transforming the economy from substantial to fictitious’ during digital transformation processes to select optimal development paths and improve allocation efficiency.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2024.2423904 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:57:p:9837-9852

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2024.2423904

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().