Impact of the digital economy on high-quality urban economic development: Evidence from Chinese cities

The establishment of China's big data comprehensive pilot zones has promoted the deep integration of big data and cloud computing, accelerating the development of the digital economy. Previous studies have mainly examined the impact of the digital economy from a single perspective. Thus, using data in China and employing a difference-in-differences approach, we analyzed the impact of the digital economy from the comprehensive perspective of high-quality urban economic development. The channel analysis showed that the digital economy significantly stimulates high-quality economic development through two mechanisms: improving human capital and promoting green technology innovation. Moreover, the digital economy can alleviate the crowding effect in developed areas, such as the eastern region and large cities, which provide a good foundation for high-quality economic development. Our findings offer new insights into the real impact of the digital economy on urban economic development.