Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Digital Economy Development, Regional Differences, and the Driving Effect of Technological Innovation: Empirical Evidence from China

The rapid development of digital economy has become an important engine to promote economic transformation and upgrading. This paper measures the level of digital economy development of 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2021 based on the entropy weight method, uses statistical analysis and geospatial distribution visualisation, Dagum Gini coefficient to explore the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of the digital economy and regional imbalance, and further analyses the role of technological innovation on the driving force of the development of the digital economy by using the fixed-effects model. The results show that: ① China’s digital economy has been steadily strengthening, with the spatial characteristics of a gradient from east to west and from coast to inland. ② Overall regional imbalances are large but reduced, with differences mainly arising from intra-regional variations and low Gnb and Gt contributions. ③ The impact of regional technological innovation level on the development of digital economy has a strong positive role in general, showing some regional heterogeneity, specifically manifested as “East > Northeast > West > Central”. These findings help policymakers and researchers to deeply understand and grasp the characteristics of China’s digital economy development, and the government should continue to strengthen innovation incentives and formulate targeted policies to promote the balanced and sustainable development of China’s digital economy according to regional differences.