Analysis on the Development of Digital Economy in Guangdong Province Based on Improved Entropy Method and Multivariate Statistical Analysis

• Main Authors: Xue Deng, Yuying Liu, Ye Xiong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Entropy
• Subjects: digital economy; indicator system; improved entropy method; principal component analysis; factor analysis
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/12/1441

The lack of adequate indicators in the research of digital economy may lead to the shortage of data support on decision making for governments. To solve this problem, first we establish a digital economy indicator evaluation system by dividing the digital economy into four types: “basic type”, “technology type”, “integration type” and “service type” and select 5 indicators for each type. On this basis, the weight of each indicator is calculated to find the deficiencies in the development of some digital economic fields by the improved entropy method. By drawing on the empowerment idea of Analytic Hierarchy Process, the improved entropy method firstly compares the difference coefficient of indicators in pairs and maps the comparison results to the scales 1–9. Then, the judgment matrix is constructed based on the information entropy, which can solve as much as possible the problem that the difference among the weight of each indicator is too large in traditional entropy method. The results indicate that: the development of digital economy in Guangdong Province was relatively balanced from 2015 to 2018 and will be better in the future while the development of rural e-commerce in Guangdong Province is relatively backward, and there is an obvious digital gap between urban and rural areas. Next we extract two new variables respectively to replace the 20 indicators we select through principal component analysis and factor analysis methods in multivariate statistical analysis, which can retain the original information to the greatest extent and provide convenience for further research in the future. Finally, we and provide constructive comments of digital economy in Guangdong Province from 2015 to 2018.