The paper theoretically discusses the mechanism of the employment effect of mobile internet development, and takes China’s prefecture-level cities as a research sample to empirically analyze the impact of mobile internet development on urban employment. The results show that mobile internet has significantly promoted the growth of urban employment, and the results are still valid after overcoming potential endogeneity, but there are heterogeneity in different regions, cities, industries and types of employment. The nonlinear impact analysis indicates that the current mobile internet and broadband internet in China are undergoing a handover of old and new drivers in promoting employment. The impact of the mobile internet on urban employment shows a significant threshold effect, indicating that the effect is governed by Metcalf’s law. Broadband internet access, economic development and industrial structure will affect the marginal impact of mobile internet on urban employment, reflecting its influence by technological path dependence and economic environment. The above research offers new empirical evidence for the debate that digital general technology affects employment, and provides a reference basis for China to promote the development of mobile internet to achieve fuller employment in the era of digital economy.
WANG Peng
,
CEN Cong
. Digital general technology adoption and urban employment: Empirical analysis on mobile internet in China[J]. Urban Problems, 2023
, 334(5)
: 34
-43
.
DOI: 10.13239/j.bjsshkxy.cswt.230504
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