Is the digital government achieving its sustainability goals? The impact of urban mobile government apps on the urban-rural income gap

Digital governments play a crucial role in advancing sustainable development. This paper focuses on mobile government apps (MGApps) emerging in Chinese cities, and develops a dynamic framework for digital government transformation to investigate the impact of MGApps on the urban-rural income gap (URIG). This study examines this framework by utilizing data spanning 2010 to 2021 from 283 cities and the China Family Panel Studies. In addition, we employ a combination of double machine learning techniques and heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences methods. The study's results indicate that the URIG significantly decreased after introducing MGApps. This narrowing is primarily attributed to MGApps' more significant impact on rural residents' income growth. The mechanistic analysis revealed that MGApps enhance public service efficiency, reduce transaction costs, and simultaneously decrease corruption and inequitable treatment by public officials. These improvements lead to quantitative and qualitative enhancements in rural public services, narrowing the URIG. Qualitatively, the impact of MGApps is more pronounced for rural low-income groups. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that MGApps demonstrate more efficacy to the reduction of URIG in cities with specific characteristics: substantial population influx, resource-dependent economies, robust comprehensive capacity, midwestern geographic distribution, and administrative barriers. This study advances our understanding of the impact of digital government on income inequality and provides empirical evidence from China. The findings also offer valuable insights that can inform policy decisions in other developing countries.