Does the Digital Economy Promote Industrial Collaboration and Agglomeration? Evidence from 286 Cities in China
Senhua Huang,
Wenzhong Ye () and
Feng Han
Additional contact information
Senhua Huang: Department of Economics, School of Business, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
Wenzhong Ye: Department of Economics, School of Business, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
Feng Han: Department of Economics, School of Economics, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China
Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 19, 1-24
Abstract:
Relying on high penetration and strong diffusion capabilities, the digital economy is becoming a new driving force for industrial integration and development. It is of great significance to promote the coordinated development of manufacturing and producer services. This paper took panel data on 286 prefecture-level cities and above in China from 2011 to 2019 as its research object, and used the two-way fixed effect model, threshold effect model, and the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) as its econometric testing methods. This analysis explored the impact of the digital economy on the synergetic agglomeration between manufacturing and productive service industries in China. The results of the research showed that the synergetic agglomeration of industries is significantly promoted by the digital economy. This conclusion was still valid after an endogeneity test was carried out. The digital economy’s role was found to mainly involve promoting knowledge spillovers and expanding the market size. An in-depth analysis of the digital economy has enabled the collaborative agglomeration of manufacturing and producer services in large, medium-sized, and small cities. The digital economy had the greatest effect on small cities, followed by medium-sized cities and large cities. The synergetic aggregation between the manufacturing and high-end producer services industries is significantly promoted by the digital economy. However, it was not found to have had a significant effect on the synergetic agglomeration between the manufacturing and low-end producer services industries. The impact of the digital economy on industrial collaborative agglomeration is nonlinear. Only when the level of the digital economy exceeds the threshold can the promoting effect of the digital economy on industrial collaborative agglomeration be manifested. In summary, the development of the digital economy was found to have promoted industrial collaboration and agglomeration in the study areas and their neighboring regions in the study period. The research results of this article are of great significance for achieving the goal of the “two-wheel drive” of the manufacturing and producer services industries, as well as high-quality economic development in China.
Keywords: digital economy; industrial collaboration and agglomeration; knowledge spillovers; market size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/19/14545/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/19/14545/ (text/html)
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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:19:p:14545-:d:1254814
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().