Study on the mechanism of the impact of the digital economy on regional coordinated development

The implementation of the "East counts, West counts" project can promote the cross-regional flow of data elements between the East and the West, forming a new pattern of coordinated development in the East, Central and West regions with data as a link. On the basis of theoretical guidance, this paper measures the digital economy competitiveness index and regional coordinated development index by constructing the relevant index system based on the data of 31 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in 2016 and 2020, establishes a regression model and introduces the intermediary effect test, in order to explore the mechanism of the digital economy to promote the coordinated development of the region. The study finds that the digital economy effectively promotes regional coordinated development through industrial structure upgrading. The "East Counts West Counts" project is able to break down spatial barriers and realise rapid cross-domain mobility of computing power, which is more powerful in promoting coordinated regional development and narrowing the gap between the East, the Middle East and the West.