This study examines the digital economy and high-quality economic development across 285 prefecture-level and higher cities in China from 2012 to 2022, with the objective of exploring both the overall and mediating effects of the digital economy on urban economic development. The findings are intended to inform policy recommendations aimed at supporting the promotion of the digital economy and the advancement of high-quality urban development in China. The primary conclusions derived from the analysis are as follows. (1) The digital economy exerts a significant positive effect on the high-quality development of urban economies, whereas the level of urbanization exerts a negative influence. Factors such as fiscal decentralization, the quality of the ecological environment, financial development, and foreign direct investment are found to positively contribute to high-quality development, and these findings are validated through robustness tests. (2) Technological innovation is identified as a mediating variable in the relationship between the digital economy and urban high-quality development, suggesting that the benefits of the digital economy are predominantly realized through technological innovation. The empirical results are also demonstrated to be robust across multiple analytical approaches.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.