Analysis On Spatio-temporal Evolution And Driving Factors Of The Internet Industry Agglomeration In China

With full coverage of Internet,China's Internet industry has gradually formed a clustering development trend,and has far-reaching impact on national social economic,but currently there is no empirical study of the Internet industry agglomeration.Therefore,based on literature reviews at home and abroad,this paper defines concept of the Internet industry,describes the development of China's Internet industry from both macro and micro perspective,and analyses the spatial-temporal evolution and trends of China's Internet industry agglomeration based on dual perspectives of regions and industries,and then explore the key factors driving the agglomeration development of the Internet industry.The paper selects panel data of 28 provinces and cities in China from 2006 to 2015,measures agglomeration degree of the Internet industry in each province and the entire country,eastern,central,western and northeastern parts by using the location quotient,geographic concentration,Herfindahl index,and spatial Gini coefficient,and then analyses its evolutionary characteristics.Through σ convergence,categorical β convergence and conditional β convergence,this paper analyses agglomeration trend of the Internet industry.Finally,an exploratory spatial data analysis method is used to systematically measure the influence of four factors on the agglomeration of Internet industry in various regions of the country.The four factors are the level of economic development,capital investment,human resources scale and infrastructure level.The main findings of the paper are as follows.(1)The spatial distribution of China's Internet industry is uneven,with obvious regional differences.Agglomeration level of Internet industry in eastern region is significantly higher than that in western and northeastern regions while central region's agglomeration degree is the worst,which is not consistent with economic development gradient in China.It indicates that locational advantage is no longer an important factor affecting the development of the Internet industry.(2)The development of the whole Internet industry in eastern part is the best,which is obviously better than that in central,western and northeastern parts.This reflects that the Internet industry in these areas has broad space for development.Agglomeration level of the Internet service industry in eastern region is quite high.There is agglomeration trend in western and northeastern regions,and central region's agglomeration is the weakest.The Internet manufacturing industry agglomeration presents polarization,eastern part is in high-level,however there is almost no agglomeration in other regions.(3)The ranking of the Internet industry agglomeration is: the Internet manufacturing industry has the best agglomeration degree,followed by the whole Internet industry,and the Internet service industry the least.The industrial structure of China's Internet industry has been constantly optimized.The Internet service industry has released tremendous potential for development,and it may become a new economic growth pole in the future.At present,the Internet manufacturing industry still occupies a supportive position in the entire industry.(4)The development of the whole Internet industry in China has been towards equalization,while that in the four sub-regions has generally developed in the direction of agglomeration.The Internet service industry has convergence trend in eastern region and has diverging trend in the entire country,central,western and northeastern regions.The situation of the Internet manufacturing industry is the opposite.From the current development trend,agglomeration of the Internet industry in all regions will not converge to the same level.(5)The primary driving factor of the whole Internet industry agglomeration in the entire country is the level of economic development,followed by human resources scale.Agglomeration level of the Internet industry in eastern and northeastern regions is highly correlated with the level of regional economic development.The development of the whole Internet industry in central and western regions is strongly promoted by human resources scale.The impact of infrastructure level on the whole Internet industry agglomeration varies from region to region.(6)Infrastructure level is an important condition for the development of China's Internet service industry.The main driving factors of the Internet service industry agglomeration in eastern region are the level of economic development and infrastructure level.Agglomeration degree of the Internet service industry in central and northeastern regions is greatly affected by the level of economic development.For western region,the level of economic development and infrastructure level play a certain role in promoting agglomeration of the Internet service industry.(7)There is a positive spatial agglomeration effect in the Internet manufacturing industry in the entire country,but it is not significant.The Internet manufacturing industry agglomeration in the entire country and western region is greatly promoted by the level of economic development and human resources scale.Primary driving factor of the Internet manufacturing industry agglomeration in eastern and central regions is human resource scale,and the level of economic development secondary.For northeastern region,the level of economic development has a decisive impact on the development of the Internet manufacturing industry.Due to the backwardness of the Internet infrastructure in northeastern part,infrastructure level has a strong restrictive effect.Finally,based on the above conclusions,relevant suggestions are proposed for the agglomeration development of the Internet industry in various regions.