How does adoption behavior towards ICT policies affect digital divides? Evidence from Chinese prefecture-level cities

Much has been investigated about antecedents of regional digital divides, while few have examined the impact of differential adoption behaviors toward informational and communications technology (ICT) policies. Utilizing a policy citation-based approach, this study quantifies the adoption behaviors of prefectural governments for ICT policies and further explores their effects on prefectural three-order digital divides: ICT access, ICT use, and ICT outcome. The moderating role of provincial governments' ICT policy adoption behaviors is also evaluated. By uncovering numerous implicit policy citation links in China's large-scale ICT policies, we calculate the speed, intensity, and content innovation of ICT policies adopted by prefecture- and province-level governments and inspect their spatial structures and locational dynamics. Further, the influence of these adoption behaviors' spatial-temporal heterogeneity on digital divides is examined based on non-spatial and spatial models. Our study demonstrates that digital divides and ICT policy adoption exhibit significant spatial-temporal disparities across prefectures in China, with this non-equilibrium continuing to expand over time. Prefectural cities with high ICT policy adoption speed, adoption intensity, and moderate content innovation can markedly reduce their threeorder digital divides and promote digital development, which is moderated by province-level ICT policy adoption behaviors. Our research offers in-depth insight into spillovers of differentiated policy adoption behaviors and highlights several broad implications for policy innovation and generalization.