Integrated Development of Information Technology and the Real Economy in China Based on Provincial Panel Data

The deep integration of information technology (IT) and the real economy contributes to China’s high-quality economic sustainable development. From the perspective of efficiency, this paper aims to build an evaluation index system, with 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2017 being taken as the research objects, conduct static and dynamic analysis by using the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA)-Malmquist index, and draw a spatial distribution diagram to reflect its changes. This study reveals that the integrated development of information technology and the real economy is unbalanced in China. The eastern region performs better with a development slowdown, while the central and western regions lag behind with a lot of room for improvement. The effect of regional agglomeration is obvious, which can be evidenced by the fact that those provinces with a high-efficiency value produce a radiation effect on their neighboring provinces. On the whole, the total factor productivity is increasing annually, with the technical progress being the main factor that affects the total efficiency. According to the results, the countermeasures and suggestions are put forward in this paper to provide reference for a better sustainability development of information technology and the real economy.