With the increasing frequency of uncertain risks, the improvement of risk resistance capability of cities, as crucial carriers of economic and social development, has become a key issue in modern public safety governance. Against the backdrop of accelerating global digital transformation, big data development is driving profound changes in economic operation models, social governance paradigms, and national governance systems. Exploring whether big data development can enhance urban economic resilience and its underlying mechanisms has become an unavoidable practical issue in current theoretical research and policy formulation.

Combining the regional economic resilience theory, new economic growth theory, and Schumpeter business cycle theory, this paper takes the “National Big Data Comprehensive Experimental Zone” policy as a quasi-natural experiment, conducts benchmark regression analysis using panel data from 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2023, and analyzes the impact of big data development on urban economic resilience and its internal transmission mechanism. The study finds that big data development mainly affects urban economic resilience through two paths: digital factor supply and digital development environment. In terms of digital factor supply, big data development enhances the supply of digital talents, digital technologies, and digital capital; in terms of digital development environment, it is manifested in the improvement of digital infrastructure and the optimization of the digital legal environment. They jointly lay a solid foundation for urban economic resilience. Further analysis shows that the enhancing effect of big data development on economic resilience is more significant in regions with higher market integration and greater governmental attention to digitalization.

This paper proposes policy recommendations from three dimensions: At the level of digital factor supply, data resource integration and sharing should be strengthened, and key factors should be accumulated; at the level of digital development environment, the deep integration of big data development and urban infrastructure construction should be promoted, and the digital law and policy framework should be improved; at the level of regional coordinated advancement, differentiated development strategies should be implemented to comprehensively enhance urban economic resilience.