Mobile Internet and Urban-Rural Income Disparity

• 1、School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunicationss，Beijing 100876

Abstract：The panel data of 31 provinces and urban areas in China from 2014-2021 were selected as the research object, and on the one hand, the level of mobile Internet development in each province and region was measured by principal component analysis to analyze whether there is regional heterogeneity in the development of mobile Internet. On the other hand, a fixed-effects model is used to empirically study the impact mechanism of mobile Internet development on the urban-rural income gap. The results show that there is regional heterogeneity in mobile Internet development, with the eastern region generally higher than the central and western regions; from an overall perspective, there are significant differences in the impact of mobile Internet development on urban and rural areas, and the digital divide still exists and mobile Internet development has significantly widened the urban-rural income gap. Based on this, four policy recommendations are proposed: first, vigorously build mobile Internet infrastructure; second, focus on training mobile Internet industry talents; third, continuously improve the mobile Internet industry structure; fourth, strengthen regional cooperation in mobile Internet development.

Keywords： Administrative Management；Mobile Internet urban-rural income gap regional heterogeneity digital divide