Based on China's provincial panel data from 2011 to 2021, this study examines the relationship between Internet development and regional innovation efficiency. The results show that Internet development can effectively improve innovation efficiency in China, and the promoting effect in the central region & western region is obviously stronger than that in the eastern region. Internet development can accelerate the convergence of the nationwide innovation efficiency gap in China, but it will hinder the convergence of innovation efficiency in the central region & western region and expand the innovation efficiency gap among its provinces. The coupling coordination degree between Internet development and innovation efficiency in China shows a steady upward trend, but there are obvious regional differences. During this period, the average coupling level in the eastern region has reached 7, which is in the primary coordination stage, while that in the central region & western region is only 5, which is on the verge of imbalance.

Using entropy weighting method, global DEA-EBM model, panel vector autoregressive model and β convergence test model, this study evaluates the Internet development level and cultural and creative industry efficiency in China from 2016 to 2022, evaluates whether Internet development can drive the efficient and balanced development of regional cultural and creative industry. The results show that Internet development can not only effectively improve cultural and creative industry efficiency, but also accelerate the efficient and balanced development of regional cultural and creative industry. However, Internet development has a significantly stronger effect on improving cultural and creative industry efficiency in the eastern region and the convergence rate of efficiency gaps among provinces than the central and western regions. Accordingly, this study puts forward some suggestions from optimizing the input-output structure of cultural and creative industry, increasing the investment in internet infrastructure and strengthening the deep integration of the two.

This paper measures the public library construction (PLC) level and the human capital investment (HCI) efficiency of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2021, tests the linkage effect and coupling coordination between PLC and HCI. The results show that: 1) the PLC level and the HCI efficiency of China shows a trend of rapid increase and fluctuating decrease respectively during this period, but the gap between regions is obvious. Both the PLC level and the HCI efficiency in the eastern region are obviously better than those in the central region and the western region. 2) There is not only a positive linkage effect between PLC and HCI efficiency, which promotes each other, but also the level of collaborative development between PLC and HCI efficiency shows a steady upward trend, with the coupling level reaching level 6, which is about to enter the primary coordination state, but there are obvious regional differences.