The effect of the digital economy service industry on regional economic resilience: evidence from three major urban agglomerations in China

ABSTRACT

The digital economy has become an important driving force for countries to rebuild economic development during COVID-19. However, its effect on regional economic resilience is still unclear. The purpose of this paper is to study the theoretical mechanism of the digital economy service industry affecting regional economic resilience and to construct an econometric model to empirically test the overall impact of the digital economy on regional economic resilience, as well as the threshold effect of the level of manufacturing development. The study finds that (1) the digital economy service industry has a significant positive impact on regional economic resilience. (2) With improvement in the level of manufacturing development, the positive contribution of the digital economy service industry to the regional economic resilience is enhanced, and the effective coupling of the digital economy service industry and the manufacturing industry can improve the regional economic resilience to a greater extent. Therefore, this paper proposes that, to improve the resilience of the regional economy, we should not only improve the level of digital technology of the digital economy service industry, but also focus on the application of digital technology in the real economy, especially in the manufacturing industry, encourage the digital transformation of enterprises, and improve the digital governance capacity of the government.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital economy
• economic resilience
• service industry
• urban agglomeration
• empirical analysis

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• JEL CLASSIFICATION A10
• A11
• A12

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72004143 and 72377105), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality (9212002), and the Project of Cultivation for young top-notch Talents of Beijing Municipal Institutions (BPHR202203164).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [72004143, 72373105]; Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality [9212002]; the Project of Cultivation for young top-motch Talents of Beijing Municipal Institutions [BPHR202203164].