The Impact of National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zones on Provincial Educational Disparities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62051/293rew32Keywords:
National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zones; provincial educational disparity; fiscal allocation effect; human-capital demand effect; technology empowerment effect.Abstract
Against the backdrop of the digital economy profoundly reshaping development patterns, the social welfare effects of big data strategies have attracted increasing attention. However, the dividends and divides generated by digital technology empowerment coexist, and its net effect on social equity, especially regional educational equity, remains unclear. Taking the staggered establishment of the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zones as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to systematically evaluate the causal effect of this policy on provincial educational disparities. The study finds that the implementation of the pilot-zone policy significantly narrows provincial educational disparities, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests, including the parallel-trend test, placebo test, replacement of the dependent variable, and PSM-DID. Further analysis reveals regional heterogeneity in the policy effect: it is significant in eastern, central, and northeastern China, but insignificant in western China. Mechanism analysis indicates that the policy mainly optimizes the allocation efficiency and accessibility of educational resources through three transmission channels: strengthening fiscal support, promoting the upgrading of industrial structure, and improving the level of digital technology, thereby restraining interregional educational inequality. This study confirms that big-data development policies have the dual functions of promoting growth and improving equity, and provides empirical evidence for simultaneously advancing economic development and social equity in the process of digital transformation and for formulating more inclusive regional development policies.
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