IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/growch/v57y2026i1ne70098.html

Bridging the Regional Innovation Gap: The Driving Role of Digital Governance in China

Author

Listed:
  • Liping Li
  • Jie Peng
  • Bin Hu
  • Peiyu Li

Abstract

Digital governance (DG), functioning as a critical driver in regional innovation ecosystems, effectively promotes spatial equity and innovation equilibrium. Based on a panel of Chinese cities from 2010 to 2023, we treat the Internet + Government Services policy as a quasi‐natural experiment of DG and apply a difference‐in‐differences model to analyze the impact of the DG on the regional innovation gaps (RIG). Results indicate that DG significantly narrows RIG, particularly in cities with advanced digital infrastructure, non‐shrinking population, large‐scale cities and abundant human capital. The mechanism analysis demonstrates that DG narrows RIG by eliminating disparities in the innovation environment and facilitating the cross‐regional flow of innovation factors. This convergence effect predominantly originates from reducing RIG between developed and less‐developed regions. Additionally, DG exerts a more pronounced promotional effect on innovation development in central municipal districts, while its effect on county‐level areas remains relatively limited, thereby exacerbating the RIG within cities. These findings offer substantial implications for formulating targeted DG strategies to foster spatially balanced regional innovation development.

Suggested Citation

  • Liping Li & Jie Peng & Bin Hu & Peiyu Li, 2026. "Bridging the Regional Innovation Gap: The Driving Role of Digital Governance in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:57:y:2026:i:1:n:e70098
    DOI: 10.1111/grow.70098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.70098
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/grow.70098?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:57:y:2026:i:1:n:e70098. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0017-4815 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.