Abstract: Digital economy brings new growth points to economic development and has an important impact on farmers' income increase. This paper systematically sorts out the relationship between digital economy, urbanization and farmers' income increase. Based on the panel data of 106 cities from 2013 to 2018, the digital economy development level of the Yangtze River Economic Belt was measured. On this basis, this paper empirically analyzes the basic transmission mechanism and heterogeneous transmission mechanism of the digital economy affecting farmers' income increase, and uses the level of urbanization as a threshold variable to examine the nonlinear relationship between the digital economy and farmers' income increase. The study found that the digital economy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt not only directly and significantly promotes the increase of farmers' income, but also indirectly promotes the increase of farmers' income by improving the level of urbanization. The digital economy in the Yangtze River Economic Belt has a significant urbanization threshold effect in promoting farmers' income, and there are obvious regional differences in the promotion of the digital economy on the income of farmers in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Therefore, a dynamic and differentiated digital economy development strategy should be implemented.
