Digital Government Development, Local Governments’ Attention Distribution and Enterprise Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China

Abstract

Building digital government is an important means for the government to improve the public service ability and optimize the business environment, which directly affects the production and operation activities of micro-enterprises. Based on the panel data of listed enterprises and municipal government portal website performance in China, this paper empirically investigates the impact of digital government development on enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) and the moderating effect of the local government’s attention distribution. The research results showed that digital government development significantly improved the enterprise TFP, and this conclusion remained unchanged after a series of robustness tests using instrumental variables, one-stage lag of explained variables, and debiased machine learning models. We also found that the greater the pressure faced by local governments and the longer the chief officials’ tenure, the more attention local governments paid to building digital government, and the more obvious the role of digital government development in promoting enterprise TFP. Heterogeneity test results showed that the information disclosure, online service, and public participation all had a positive effect on enterprise TFP, while the user experience had no effect on it. Digital government development had a more obvious role in promoting enterprise TFP of central and western regions, non-SOEs, and technology-intensive enterprises. Moreover, reducing enterprise rent-seeking, attracting new enterprise entry, and increasing enterprise R&D investment are important mechanisms for digital government development to improve enterprise TFP.

Impact of Digital Government on Digital Transformation of Enterprises from the Perspective of Urban Economic Sustainable Development

“…Scholars have conducted research on the current situation [21,22], the influencing factors [23], and the economic consequences [24,25] of digital government construction. From a public perspective, digital government enhances government transparency, improves information accuracy and effectiveness [11], increases government operational efficiency [26], enhances citizen participation [27], suppresses corruption [28], optimizes the legal environment, and improves the relationship between the government and the market [29].…”

“…Building digital governments becomes an inevitable choice that governments must make. The National Data Bureau was established in Beijing on 25 October 2023, which means that China will coordinate and plan the construction of the digital economy and digital society at the national level, and the construction of China's digital economy has entered into a new era under the leadership of the government. The exploration into how to establish a specialized data management agency at the provincial level began earlier than at the national level in China.…”

Strategic Development of Enterprises in the Conditions ofDigitalization Accordingtothe Principles of Industry4.0

“…The authors (Enji Li et al, 2023) are convinced that digitalization contributes to the optimization of the business environment, which directly affects the production and operational activities of enterprises. The results of the scientists' research demonstrate an increase in the factor productivity of the enterprise.…”

A Survey of Digital Government: Science Mapping Approach, Application Areas, and Future Directions

“…The opinions of government employees against citizens' perceptions, habits, trust, self-efficacy, and social influences can be examined in future studies. Furthermore, citizens can be sampled randomly as potential users and non-users to investigate their opinions [10,45,50,52].…”

“…Many recently published studies have discussed DG. Some reviews examined local governments in specific regions or countries [9,10]. Others studied the DG architecture by examining the challenges and problems in investigating the research agenda [11][12][13].…”