Digital Economy Development and Urban Economic Resilience: Evidence at China’s City Level

Abstract

In the face of uncertainty in the global economy’s development, this paper investigates the relationships between the growth of digital economy and economic resilience using Chinese cities data spanning 2011 to 2019. Results indicate that the growth of the digital economy is positively related to economic resilience, which still holds after robustness tests. The effect is heterogeneous by city type, city location and stage of growth for the digital economy. The impact mechanism of the two is explored from a supply and demand standpoint such as industrial upgrading, innovation, green development, population agglomeration, income gap and market integration.