The Impact of the Platform Economy on Urban–Rural Integration Development: Evidence from China

As a new economic system composed of data-driven, platform-supported, and network-coordinated economic activity units, the platform economy provides a new impetus for the integrated development of urban and rural areas. This paper uses China’s provincial panel data from 2011–2021 to measure the development level of the platform economy and the urban–rural integration development index using the entropy weight method and empirically tests the direct and indirect effects of the platform economy on urban–rural integration development. The research finds that (1) the platform economy has a significant role in promoting the development of urban–rural integration. After introducing a series of robustness tests such as instrumental variables estimation, the results are still significant. (2) Regional innovation capability is an important transmission mechanism for the platform economy to enable urban–rural integrated development. The platform economy can indirectly promote urban–rural integrated development by improving regional innovation capability. (3) There is a significant mesomeric effect between the traditional factors of production and the platform economy and the mesomeric effect of capital, technology, land, and labor factors increased in turn. (4) The digital twin platform is a kind of digital land generated in the platform economy and has become an important place and value source for products in the digital era.