利用2011-2023年中国284个城市面板数据,深入探讨数实融合对要素配置的影响及作用机制。研究发现:(1)数实融合显著改善要素配置扭曲,在要素市场细分为劳动力市场和资本市场后,该影响仍然显著存在;(2)数实融合通过提高劳动力使用成本、降低资本机会成本,推动劳动力市场一体化、资本市场一体化以及提升技术创新能力,改善要素配置扭曲;(3)数实融合对要素配置扭曲的改善效应在劳动力和资本同时配置不足、服务型城市、网络效应较强城市、大型城市、东部以及沿海城市中更显著。研究揭示了数实融合改善要素配置扭曲的作用机理,为因地制宜推进要素市场化改革提供参考启示。

For a long time, the catch-up development strategy, characterized by the suppression of the prices of factors such as labor and capital, has promoted the rapid growth of China’s economy, but it has also led to the factor market distortions, generating problems such as uneven spatial distribution of factors, poor mobility and price distortions, which in turn triggered the factor allocation distortion. Some studies have shown that when there is no factor allocation distortion, factor allocation optimization can improve China’s economic efficiency by 88.12% on average. At the same time, the digital economy, as an innovative economic form, is digitally penetrating and transforming the real industry, and this process of digital-real integration provides new opportunities for improving factor allocation distortion. Digital-real integration not only promotes the combination of data elements and traditional factors of production, broadens the boundaries of the factor market, promotes cross-domain flows and efficient allocation of various types of factors, but also promotes intelligent producti on and refined management, effectively reducing factor redundancy and mismatch.A large amount of existing literature has explored the impact of the digital economy on factor allocation distortion, but less attention has been paid to the effect of the emerging digital context of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion. Although individual scholars have explored the relationship between digital-real convergence and factor market distortion, the scope of their research is limited to the provincial level, and they have not conducted in-depth discussions on the mechanisms at play. On the other hand, existing research on the economic effects of digital-real integration mainly focuses on green innovation, Chinese-style modernization, total factor productivity and new quality productivity, etc., yet it rarely specifically explores the impact of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion, which is profoundly affecting factor flows, factor transactions and factor allocation efficiency, and will inevitably have a far-reaching impact on factor allocation distortion. Thus, this paper utilizes the panel data of 284 cities in China from 2011 to 2023 to deeply explore the impact of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion and its functioning mechanism from both theoretical and empi rical levels.This paper mainly obtains the following research conclusions: First, the digital-real integration significantly mitigates the factor allocation distortion, which still holds after the endogeneity and robustness test, and when the factor market is subdivided into the labor market and the capital market, the improvement effect still exists significantly. Second, the mechanism test shows that the cost adjustment effect, market integration effect, and technological innovation effect are important mechanisms by which digital-real integration improves factor allocation distortion. Specifically, digital-real integration improves factor allocation distortions by raising the cost of labor use and lowering the opportunity cost of capital, promoting the integration of the labor market and capital market, and enhancing technological innovation. Third, the improvement effect of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion is more significant in the state of under-allocation of labor and capital at the same time, service-oriented cities, cities with high network size, large cities, eastern cities, and coast al cities.The possible marginal contributions of this paper are as follows: First, aiming at the limitation of the lack of digitalreal integration perspective in the existing research, this paper tries to include the digital-real integration and factor allocation distortion into the same analytical framework, to explore the relationship between the two in depth and provide a new research perspective for the issue of digital-real integration and factor allocation distortion. Second, this paper systematically analyzes the mechanism of the impact of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion from the economic perspectives of cost adjustment, market integration and technological innovation, which helps to deepen the understanding of the relationship between the two and enrich the theoretical framework in the field of digital-real integration and factor allocation distortion, and provide theoretical support for the subsequent research. Third, this paper further explores the differential impact of digital-real integration on factor allocation distortion under different factor allocation states, industrial bases, network effects, city sizes, and geographic locations, and these differentiated analyses provide empirical evidence for more effectively correcting factor allocation distortion and enhancing the level of digital-real integration.