Research on the influence of digital economy on regional innovation efficiency

Digital economy as an important impetus to enhance regional innovation efficiency, has to be a heated issue in ongoing studies. This study utilizes provincial-level panel data for the Yangtze River Economic Zone in China from 2013-2020, and firstly applies LSTM neural network to predict the future trend of the digital economy, and further explores the association betwixt digital economy and regional innovation efficiency.The results implied that the level of digital economy in the Yangtze River Economic Zone will rise steadily in the next five years. In terms of the association between the digital economy and regional innovation efficiency, the digital economy is able to enhance regional innovation efficiency, and it is also able to improve innovation efficiency by facilitating the flow of innovation capital. As the flow of innovation capital expands, the influence of the digital economy on innovation efficiency shows an inverted "U"-shaped relationship.