Digital Economy, Factor Allocation, and Sustainable Agricultural Development: The Perspective of Labor and Capital Misallocation

Abstract

As an emerging economy, the combination of the digital economy and industrial development can lead to a variety of new industries and new formats and form new momentum. This paper aims to analyze how the digital economy affects sustainable agricultural development, through what path, and what role the factor allocation plays in this process. Based on the analysis of the impact mechanism of the digital economy on sustainable agricultural development, this paper takes 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2020 as the research object, builds a panel data model and mediation effect model, empirical analyses on the impact of the digital economy on sustainable agricultural development, and verifies the mediation effect of factor allocation in this process. This study found that the digital economy significantly promoted sustainable agricultural development. At the national level, this obvious promotion effect was achieved by reducing the misallocation of labor and capital. At the regional level, sustainable agricultural development in the eastern region of China depended on the optimization effect of the digital economy on the allocation of labor and capital, but the situation was slightly different in the central and western regions of China. The digital economy in the central and western regions of China significantly improved sustainable agricultural development by allocation effect of labor factors. Although the allocation effect of capital factors had a positive effect on sustainable agricultural development, it was not significant. In order to promote sustainable agricultural development, the digital industry development should be accelerated, the allocation effect of the factor market should be brought into play, and the digital economy should be better integrated with sustainable agricultural development so as to realize the modernization of agricultural development.