Spatial mobility network and influencing factors of digital talent in the Greater Bay Area

This study examines digital talent mobility in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area using online public professional profiles from 2015 to 2024. Combining complex network analysis with a spatial autoregressive interaction model, it reveals global hub-to-hub links, a national diamond structure and a regional hierarchy, with Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau playing differentiated roles. Urban scale drives attraction and retention of digital talents, while salary effects are unstable. Education-related public investment attracts talent more strongly in central cities, and research and development capacity mainly supports local retention. Distance decay and negative origin-destination dependence reveal persistent spatial friction and corridor-level competition.