An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Digital Economy On Urbanization Rate In China

Urbanization is a necessary path for China to achieve modernization and the largest domestic demand potential and development momentum in China.However,since China has fully acceded to the middle and late stages of urbanization as the country’s urbanization rate surpassed 60%in 2019,the continued slowdown of urbanization,the slowdown of urbanization rate growth in cities at that stage of the urbanization process,the urgent need to convert new momentum,while at the same time the emerging digital economy is increasingly becoming an important power source of economic development of the global economy,China’s digital economy has grown due to the Internet’s strong economic and social connectivity.The growth of China’s digital economy and the profound integration of the Internet with traditional sectors are both results of the Internet’s deep economic and social integration,and the economic development and technological progress brought by the information revolution to promote the urbanization process in countries all over the world today.Therefore,this paper hopes to find solutions to the problems faced by China’s urbanization from the development of the digital economy.This study examines how the digital economy affects the rate of urbanization from two angles:mechanism analysis and empirical testing.In terms of mechanism analysis,this paper compiles the fundamental traits of the digital economy by analyzing the work of prior experts on the subject,and after combining with the relevant theories of urbanization development to carry out impact mechanism analysis,it is determined that there is indeed an impact mechanism of the digital economy on urbanization development;in terms of empirical evidence,this paper selects the data of China’s 282 prefecture-level cities and above for three years in 2017,2018 and 2019,and through factor analysis to calculate the digital economy index as the core explanatory variable,and use panel data analysis and threshold effect analysis to study the specific impact of the digital economy on the urbanization rate.The empirical results showed that the digital economy does have a significant positive impact on the urbanization rate;the coefficient of the impact of the digital economy on the urbanization rate increases sequentially in the east,central and west regions when comparing by regions;the threshold effect results that the urbanization rate of cities with high urbanization levels is influenced by the digital economy to a greater extent.Finally,based on the results of the mechanism analysis and empirical analysis,conclusions are drawn,and corresponding policy suggestions are put forward from several perspectives,including sound Internet infrastructure,accelerating the development of county digital economy,and exploring a new model for sustainable development of digital economy and urbanization integration,respectively,for different regions and cities with different urbanization levels.