Internet Infrastructure Construction and Digital Productive Forces: Empirical Evidence from China

Internet infrastructure construction is an important condition to promote the development of digital productivity, and an important guarantee to promote the digital economy as a new driving force for economic growth. This paper analyzes the impact of internet infrastructure development on digital productivity using 2011–2019 prefecture-level city panel data and a quasi-natural experiment on the "Broadband China" pilot policy. The study concludes that internet infrastructure development significantly promotes the development of digital productivity, and the result passes several robustness tests. The promotion effect of internet infrastructure construction on digital productivity has significant heterogeneity among regions, between cities of different administrative levels, and between cities in urban agglomerations and non-urban agglomerations. Meanwhile, the mechanism analysis finds that internet infrastructure development affects digital productivity development through four ways: attracting the concentration of highly skilled personnel, improving the level of marketization, stimulating the city's innovation vitality, and growing the science and technology service industry.