Digital Economy Policy and Regional Public Resource Allocation: Evaluating the Equity Effects of China’s Data Infrastructure Investment

Based on Provincial Panel Data, 2013–2022

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-699-9_57How to use a DOI?

Keywords

digital economy; data infrastructure; public resource allocation; regional equity; Spatial Durbin Model

Abstract

Drawing on provincial panel data from 30 mainland provinces over 2013–2022, this study constructs an analytical framework spanning digital infrastructure investment, public service accessibility, and household income distribution, employing a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to examine how data infrastructure investment affects regional equity. Four key results emerge: (1) digital infrastructure investment significantly promotes equalization of public resource allocation but exhibits pronounced spatial spillover asymmetry; (2) eastern provinces consolidate digital resource advantages through agglomeration while western provinces face binding human capital thresholds; (3) fiscal transfer payments and digital inclusive finance together constitute the principal mediation pathway promoting equity; (4) the Broadband China strategy and the East Data West Computing programme have partially narrowed the regional digital divide, though their equalizing effects remain incomplete. The policy implication is that shifting digital infrastructure development from quantitative expansion to qualitative equalization, and establishing a cross-regional coordination mechanism anchored in data-factor marketization, are the critical pathways to equitable public resource allocation in the digital era.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruicong Liu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/02
TI  - Digital Economy Policy and Regional Public Resource Allocation: Evaluating the Equity Effects of China’s Data Infrastructure Investment
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 4th International Conference on Digital Economy and Management Science (CDEMS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 530
EP  - 539
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-699-9_57
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-699-9_57
ID  - Liu2026
ER  -