Digital infrastructure and innovation: Digital divide or digital dividend?

With more activities being moved online during the COVID-era, digital infrastructure, as a public service, is now playing a greater role in influencing innovation and making the symbiotic relationship between innovation subjects closer. While the surge in patenting in China is associated with a significant innovation gap, there is noticeable regional disparity in digital infrastructure. This study investigates whether the digital infrastructure divide widens the innovation gap in the context of the innovation ecosystem. Based on the entropy weight method, a comprehensive index of digital infrastructure was constructed using provincial panel data from China for the years 2013 to 2018. The findings suggest that…

• JU
  Jilin University