Does the Internet trigger an innovative spatial revolution: evidence from China

Abstract

This paper uses panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2018 to empirically test the influence of the Internet on the innovation gap between regions. Contrary to our intuition, the test results show that the development of the Internet has increased the innovation gap between regions. At the same time, we found that this impact is different in different regions, and the impact on those underdeveloped regions is more significant. We analyze the mechanism that causes this effect through the mediation effect model, and the results show that the Internet mainly affects the unbalanced flow of labor, thereby increasing the innovation gap between regions.