Coupling and Coordination between Digital Economy and Urban–Rural Integration in China

Abstract

The positive interaction between digital economy development and urban–rural relationship adjustment can both expand the contribution of technological factors and enhance the balance of urban–rural development. This paper aims to explore the trends and barriers to the coupled and coordinated development of the digital economy and urban–rural integration. This paper measures the degree of coupled coordination between the digital economy and urban–rural integration based on provincial panel data from 2013 to 2020 in China. Based on this, this paper investigates the characteristics and driving forces of the coupled coordination relationship through the chronological evolution method and geographically weighted regression. The results show that (1) the coupling relationship between the digital economy and urban–rural integration has improved substantially in Chinese provinces; (2) heterogeneity still exists at the provincial level; (3) this relationship is expected to be optimized over time; and (4) information construction, rational distribution, balanced growth, equalization of public services and digital-industry development does have a positive effect on the improvement of the coupled coordination relationship, and the popularity of the internet has a negative effect. Accordingly, this paper mainly draws the following conclusions. The coupling relationship between the digital economy and urban–rural integration in the Chinese provinces shows a tendency to be more coordinated. It is necessary to promote the development of the five positive drivers and to guide and regulate the negative drivers.

Spatial-Temporal Variations and Driving Factors of the Coupling and Coordination Level of the Digital Economy and Sustainable Rural Development: A Case Study of China

“…The coupling-coordination degree model, the Dagum Gini coefficient, and the panel space metrology model were used to analyze the spatiotemporal differences between the coupled and coordinated development levels of China's digital economy and rural revitalization [34]. The time evolution method and geographically weighted regression are employed to analyze the driving factors of the coupled and coordinated development levels of China's digital economy and urbanrural integration [35]. The coupling-coordination degree model, the Theil index, and the Tobit model are used to analyze the spatiotemporal differences and influencing factors of the horizontal coupling-coordination levels of China's marine economy and digital economy [36].…”

“…Third, education and training can cultivate talents with digital skills, supply intellectual support for rural development, supply digital technical talents, and lay a solid foundation for the development of the digital economy. Based on the above analysis, this study develops a digital economy evaluation system from the three aspects of digital infrastructure, digital-industry development, and digitalinnovation level, fully incorporating previous research results [35,41], and selects a total of 15 indicators. The specific indicators are presented in Table 1.…”

“…The weight of income from the technology market as a percentage of GDP is the largest, indicating that this indicator has the highest impact on the comprehensive evaluation system of the digital economy. Based on the above analysis, this study develops a digital economy evaluation system from the three aspects of digital infrastructure, digital-industry development, and digitalinnovation level, fully incorporating previous research results [35,41], and selects a total of 15 indicators. The specific indicators are presented in Table 1.…”

Can digital technology promote the equalization of regional basic public services?

“…Second, digital technology promotes the flow of factors between urban and rural areas, which helps break down the barriers between urban and rural areas and the benign interaction between the digital economy and urban-rural relations, enhancing the balance of urban-rural development (Zhang and He, 2021) and helping to narrow the gap between urban and rural public services. Third, digital technology promotes the innovation of the supply side of public services (Man et al, 2023), giving rise to new business forms and models, and the existence of digital platforms can realize the interaction between the subject and object of public service supply and the integration of resources (Shen, 2022); help improve the supply of public services such as education, culture and health (Yang et al, 2019); promote more adequate and balanced public facilities (Chen, 2023); identify the differences in public services in different regions and fields (Gao, 2021a, b); make up for the shortcomings of public services (Xia and Liu, 2021) and promote the equalization of regional public services (Zhao and Jiao, 2023).…”