Abstract The city is the carrier of the digital economy, and the resources of the digital economy are concentrated in the urban regional space. The expansion of the digital economy will inevitably promote the improvement of the urban economy development. Based on the balanced panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018, this paper uses the SDM model under dual fixed effect to evaluate the effect of the digital economy on urban economic development. The results indicate that the development of digital economy can not only significantly promote the economic development of local cities, but also improve adjacent cities' development with spatial spillover effect. The digital economy stimulates the urban innovation, market potential and industrial agglomeration which are the transmission path to boost urban economic development. The further heterogeneity test shows that the promoting effect of digital economy for local city's development is positively correlated with city scale, while the spatial spillover effect of digital economy in small cities is more significant. The subdivision test of digital economy shows that each dimension directly promotes the economic development of local cities, and only the foundation of digital industry drives the economic development of neighboring cities. In terms of sub-region, the role of digital economy in promoting the economic development of local cities is positively related to the degree of regional economic development, but has no significant impact on the economic development of neighboring areas.
LU Yuxiu,FANG Xingming,ZHANG Anquan. Digital Economy, Spatial Spillover and High-Quality Development of Urban Economy. Economic Survey, 2021, 38(6): 021.
2021, Vol. 38 
