关键词: 数字经济发展, 国家大数据综合试验区, 地方融资平台债务, 财政压力, 财政空间

Abstract: Digital economy, as a new economic form, has gradually penetrated into various aspects of economic and social development, and has provided sufficient power for China's development. It is also the key to optimizing financial governance, preventing and defusing the risks of local financing platform debt expansion. In this paper, the establishment of “the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone” represents the development of digital economy. Based on the panel data of 277 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2018, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of digital economy development on the debt expansion of local financing platforms and its mechanism. The research shows that the development of digital economy can reduce the debt scale of local financing platforms, which is an important measure to curb the debt expansion of local financing platforms. The mechanism analysis indicates that the development of digital economy has effectively inhibited the debt expansion of local financing platforms by expanding fiscal space, easing fiscal pressure and improving the effectiveness of internal supervision. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the debt governance effect of digital economy development is more obvious in regions with high fiscal transparency, high debt risk, and high economic growth pressure, as well as in first-tier and second-tier cities. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the awareness of digital economy development, deepen the construction of the national big data comprehensive pilot zone according to local conditions, continuously expand regional fiscal space, reduce financial pressure, and improve internal supervision capacity, so as to restrain the debt expansion of local financing platforms.

Key words: Digital Economy Development, the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone, Local Financing Platform Debt, Financial Pressure, Fiscal Space