The Spatiotemporal Impact of Digital Economy on High-Quality Agricultural Development: Evidence from China

Abstract

China’s high-quality economic development is strongly supported by the high-quality development of agriculture, and the digital economy has emerged as a key driver for promoting shared prosperity and high-quality economic development. Against this backdrop, investigating the connection between high-quality agricultural development and the digital economy holds significant importance. This study utilized the entropy-weighted TOPSIS model to evaluate comprehensive evaluation indicators of the two according to panel data from 30 provinces in China between 2011 and 2021. Subsequently, GIS spatial analysis and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) were employed to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution features and spatial correlations. Finally, the spatiotemporal geographically weighted regression (GTWR) model was constructed to examine the spatiotemporal impact of the digital economy on the advancement of high-quality agricultural growth. The results indicate that: (1) from 2011 to 2021, China’s high-quality agricultural development and digital economy both demonstrated a general increasing trend. In terms of spatial distribution, there were significant spatial variations, with a general trend of “Southeast is higher, whereas the Northwest is lower”. The regions with significant value were primarily clustered in the coastal areas in the east and several provincial capitals. (2) Both of the two exhibited significant global spatial self-correlation, and there were also significant spatiotemporal clustering effects in high-quality agricultural growth, gradually forming a high-value cluster centered around Shanghai and a low-value cluster centered around western provinces. (3) The digital economy positively influences the enhancement of high-quality agricultural development, demonstrating notable spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In contrast to the southeastern areas, the influence is more pronounced in the northern and central-western areas.