The Impact Of The Development Of The Information And Communication Industry On Income Inequalit

Since the upsurge of high-tech production reform in the new century and the14 th Five-Year Plan,industries related to digital economy,as a strategic industry of national focus,have attracted more and more attention from economists.The information and communication industry is an important part of this: As a key link of digital economy and high-quality development,most scholars focus on its impact on macroeconomic growth and industrial structure upgrading.Existing studies on the impact of information and communication industry on income inequality also focus on the economic growth and urbanization process of transnational samples,and pay little attention to the synergistic effect of regional human capital level in this impact process.And relevant empirical studies are scarce.However,how this leading industry can develop in coordination with other industries and work together on the issues of income inequality and people’s livelihood is a key link for China to move towards an all-round well-off society and achieve common prosperity since entering high-quality development.Therefore,based on the economic and social data of 286 Chinese cities from2000 to 2019,this paper first established a time-individual dual fixed effect model to explore the linear impact of the information and communication industry on income inequality,especially the heterogeneous impact of the two in different regions of the East,middle and western regions.On this basis,a single and multiple threshold model is established to further explore the non-linear influence of the information and communication industry on the urban-rural income gap under the adjustment of education input and human capital in the underdeveloped western region.After empirical analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions: On the whole,there is a negative correlation between the development of information and communication industry and social income inequality,that is,the development of relevant industries has a positive effect on narrowing the income gap,but for the relatively backward western region,it has a negative effect on deepening the income gap.This is caused by the "digital divide" caused by the weak development level of related industries in the western region compared with the central and eastern regions and the unbalanced distribution of related resources.One of the keys to solving this problem may be to increase the level of investment in education and human capital.The empirical results of this paper also confirm this thesis.The in-depth study on the data of western regions with human capital as a threshold variable shows that when human capital crosses a certain threshold value,the negative effect of the development of information and communication industry on income inequality is alleviated.This provides a certain empirical reference for promoting the high-quality development of digital industry,coordinating the balanced distribution of regional resources,and solving the paradox of industrial development.It also makes us think more deeply about how to realize the vision of common prosperity in the future.