The future of cities in the digital economy era: A study on the impact of internet on the agglomeration of producer services in Chinese Cities

Abstract

We construct an instrumental variable for the Internet penetration rate using China's “8-horizontal-8-longitudinal” optical cable network to identify the impact of the Internet on the agglomeration of producer services in cities. We find that, (i) the Internet promotes the agglomeration of producer services to cities with larger population sizes due to the higher knowledge intensity of large cities; (ii) the Internet can strengthen the role of the expansion of the manufacturing industry in a city or its surrounding areas in promoting producer services agglomeration in large cities, which in turn promotes the agglomeration of producer services to large cities.