A Study on the Measurement and Spatial Differentiation of Regional Digital Economy Development Level Based on Panel Data Model

The digital economy is now a key driver of regional economic development, yet the extent of digital economic development differs greatly by region, and the spatial structure of the digital economy is not well understood. There is an urgent need to have a scientific measurement system and study of spatial differentiation patterns. The present paper develops a system of evaluation index which includes four dimensions: digital infrastructure, digital industrialization, industrial digitalization and digital governance. The index weights are calculated by the entropy weight method, and the index of the level of digital economic development of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China between 2015 and 2023 is measured by using a panel data model. These findings are presented through the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) to demonstrate the presence of spatial clustering in terms of Moran I and Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and a spatial panel econometric model is constructed to determine the factors at work. The results show that the overall score of the national digital economy development level increased from 0.342 in 2015 to 0.718 in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 10.3%; the spatial distribution shows a gradient pattern of “high in the east and low in the west”, with an average of 0.802 in the eastern region, 0.651 in the central region, and 0.543 in the western region; the global Moran index is 0.426 ( < 0.01 ), showing a significant positive spatial correlation; and three high-high agglomeration areas of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta and a low-low agglomeration area of five northwestern provinces were identified.