Digital Government Development, Local Governments’ Attention Distribution and Enterprise Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China

Enji Li, Qing Chen, Xinyan Zhang and Chen Zhang ()
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Enji Li: School of Business Administration, Hebei University of Economics and Business, Shijiazhuang 050061, China
Qing Chen: School of Business Administration, Hebei University of Economics and Business, Shijiazhuang 050061, China
Xinyan Zhang: School of Public Finance & Taxation, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014, China
Chen Zhang: School of Public Finance & Taxation, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: Building digital government is an important means for the government to improve the public service ability and optimize the business environment, which directly affects the production and operation activities of micro-enterprises. Based on the panel data of listed enterprises and municipal government portal website performance in China, this paper empirically investigates the impact of digital government development on enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) and the moderating effect of the local government’s attention distribution. The research results showed that digital government development significantly improved the enterprise TFP, and this conclusion remained unchanged after a series of robustness tests using instrumental variables, one-stage lag of explained variables, and debiased machine learning models. We also found that the greater the pressure faced by local governments and the longer the chief officials’ tenure, the more attention local governments paid to building digital government, and the more obvious the role of digital government development in promoting enterprise TFP. Heterogeneity test results showed that the information disclosure, online service, and public participation all had a positive effect on enterprise TFP, while the user experience had no effect on it. Digital government development had a more obvious role in promoting enterprise TFP of central and western regions, non-SOEs, and technology-intensive enterprises. Moreover, reducing enterprise rent-seeking, attracting new enterprise entry, and increasing enterprise R&D investment are important mechanisms for digital government development to improve enterprise TFP.

Keywords: digital government development; enterprise TFP; attention distribution; business environment (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 (3)

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