| Since the Internet was officially introduced in China in 1994,the era of digital economy has begun.The digital economy is a new economic form with data and knowledge as the core,information technology as the support,and innovation as the main driving force,which is a sustainable development mode that changes the production mode of traditional industries.Since the advent of the digital economy,information technology with the Internet as the core has been deeply integrated with traditional industries,realizing the coordinated development of the Internet and enterprise online,exploring new business models for the integration of online and offline,changing the relationship between enterprises,retailers and consumers,and promoting economic growth and economic transformation.The changes triggered by the digital economy have had a particularly significant impact on international trade.With the development of the digital economy,digital technology and international trade are deeply integrated,forming a new mode of trade.The continuous development of digital technology and the construction of cross-border e-commerce platforms have greatly reduced the cost of cross-border display of goods and acquiring overseas orders,making cross-border communication,settlement,logistics coordination more convenient.At the same time,electronic government reform simplifies the process of enterprise exports,and the quantity and structure of China’s manufacturing exports will change under the digital economy.In the context of China’s high-quality economic development,the quality of export products is a key issue of concern in international trade.The rising production costs caused by the loss of the demographic dividend,anti-dumping litigation and trade frictions caused by low-price competition,and the uncertain international trade environment have all contributed to the urgent need to upgrade the quality of China’s export products.The embedding of digital technology will change the internal production behavior of enterprises,such as improving total factor productivity,increasing technological and product innovation,increasing input in imported intermediates,changing transportation methods and payment methods,etc..Meanwhile,the digital market environment will intensify market competition,trigger enterprises to enter and exit the market mechanism,realize the optimal allocation of resources in society,and then improve the quality of export products.The digital economy has the characteristics of innovation and sustainable development that the traditional economic form does not have,which opens a new door for the upgrading of China’s export product quality,and provides a possible path for accelerating the transformation of the foreign economic development mode,promoting the high-quality development of foreign trade and exploring the road of high-quality innovation.Therefore,it is of strong theoretical and practical significance to study the impact of the digital economy on the upgrading of export product quality and the internal mechanism.In view of this,this paper conducts an in-depth study on how the development of the digital economy affects the upgrading of export products quality in China’s manufacturing industry and its specific mechanism of action.The research contents are as follows:Chapter 3 analyzes the current situation of China’s digital economy development from the two aspects of development scale and global competitiveness,and analyzes the distribution characteristics of China’s export product quality.On this basis,a theoretical model is constructed to illustrate the possible internal mechanism of the digital economy affecting the quality of China’s export products.The review of the development status of digital economy shows that from the perspective of scale,the scale of China’s digital economy in 2020 becomes the second largest in the world closely following the United States,and maintains a high-speed growth trend.However,compared with other major digital economy economies,the digital economy has a low proportion of GDP,less than half of GDP,and the level of digital economy development in various regions is unbalanced.From the perspective of global competitiveness,the overall level of global competitiveness of China’s digital economy is relatively high,in the forefront of the world.However,the development of various sub-indicators in the digital economy is uneven: the development level of digital industry and digital infrastructure is high,but the level of digital innovation and digital governance is low.At the same time,the analysis of the distribution characteristics of export product quality found that the overall quality of export products in China’s manufacturing industry showed an upward trend.The difference in export product quality between industries was large,and the fluctuation of export product quality in some industries was large,while the export product quality of high-tech industries was higher,and the quality increased year by year.The quality of manufacturing export products in the eastern,central and western regions showed a consistent trend: rising in shock,while the average quality of export products in the eastern and western regions was higher than that in the central region.The quality of export products in central cities and peripheral cities also showed a consistent upward trend,but the average quality of export products in central cities was higher than that of peripheral cities.The quality of export products in countries and regions that have signed trade agreements was upgraded rapidly.Theoretical analysis demonstrates that in the era of digital economy,the digital transformation of enterprises has two effects on product quality upgrading.The first is the direct effect.This paper analyzes the impact of digitization on the upgrading of export product quality from the aspects of the product itself and the product supply chain.The direct effect is manifested in two aspects,on the one hand,digital technology is directly combined with the physical components of the product to promote the intelligence and digitization of export products.On the other hand,digital technology and digital governance are conducive to information transparency,rapid transmission of information and knowledge,and improve the effectiveness of the product supply chain.The second is the indirect effect.This paper discusses the impact of digital technology on the upgrading of the export products quality from the two aspects of the internal production behavior of enterprises and the entry and exit of enterprises into the market(structural factors).The indirect effect is manifested in two aspects,on the one hand,the digital transformation of enterprises affects the upgrading of export product quality by improving total factor productivity,accelerating innovation,expanding intermediate imports and changing trade costs.On the other hand,the integration of digital technology and industry has created a digital atmosphere for enterprise development,taking advantage of information to promote market competition,so that new entrants with high-quality products can replace inefficient enterprises more efficiently,and incumbent enterprises in order to cope with competitive pressure,improve the quality of export products through digital transformation,and ultimately achieve product quality upgrades in the industry and optimal allocation of resources.Then this chapter build a mathematical model to demonstrate the above theoretical analysis from the process of mathematical derivation.Chapter 4 is empirical research.In recent years,digital technology has been widely used in traditional industries,creating a good digital atmosphere,and the degree of digitization of the market has been deepening.Therefore,this chapter uses the micro-data of China’s manufacturing enterprises from 2011 to 2013 to empirically study the impact of market digitization on the quality of export products from the perspective of digital atmosphere,and studies the heterogeneity of market digitization on the upgrading of export product quality from five aspects,such as enterprise ownership,local region,trade mode,export destination country and product technology level.The study found that the digitization of the market has indeed promoted the improvement of the quality of China’s export products.The digital economy has the largest positive impact on the quality of export products of private enterprises,followed by foreign-funded enterprises,but the impact on the quality of export products of state-owned enterprises is not significant.The digital economy has a positive effect on the export product quality of enterprises in the eastern region(or coastal)region,but has no obvious effect on ones in the central and western(or non-coastal)regions.The digital economy plays a greater role in promoting the quality of export products through general trade.The quality of the products exported to the countries along the “Belt and Road” is more positively affected by the digital economy.By dividing the products into low-tech products,medium-tech products and high-tech products,the digital economy has the greatest effect on the improving the quality of exported medium-tech products,followed by low-tech products,while the digital economy has no significant impact on the quality of high-tech products.In order to ensure the robustness and reliability of the results,this chapter uses the unit value as another proxy for the quality of the product,recalculates the product quality with a different measure of substitution elasticity,and constructs the digital economy index with a new method.The results show that the digital economy still significantly improves the quality of the export products.Considering the endogenous problem of the digital economy index,this paper uses the interaction terms between the number of post offices in each city in 1992 and the number of Internet users in the previous year and the interaction terms between the slope of each city and the number of Internet users in the previous year to construct instrumental variables.The identification of instrumental variables and weak tool identification are tested,indicating that the instruments are indeed effective.The research conclusion is still valid after the introduction of instrumental variables.Finally,this chapter examines the role of national digital economy policies.In order to activate the process of market digitization and the digital transformation of enterprises,the state has promulgated corresponding policies and measures to support the development of digital industries and the deep integration of digital technologies and traditional industries.Taking the National Digital Economy Innovation and Development Pilot Zone officially authorized by the State Council in October 2019 as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper empirically studies the impact of the national digital economy policy on the quality of China’s manufacturing export products using the DID method.It is found that the establishment of the pilot zone has promoted the upgrading of export product quality,but the policy effect has a time lag.Chapter 5 empirically examines the internal mechanism of digital economy affecting the quality of China’s export products,and finds that digital economy affects the upgrading of export product quality through two channels: internal behavior of enterprises and structural entry and exit the market.From the internal perspective of the enterprise,this chapter empirically finds that the digital economy has four main channels by using the intermediary effect model and the interaction term between the core variable(digital economy)and the proxy variable of the transmission channel.First,digital technology can improve the quality of enterprises’ export products by improving enterprises’ total factor productivity and optimizing resource allocation.Second,digital economy can enhance productivity and the ability of enterprises to produce high-quality products by innovation,in addition,some innovative activities directly affect export products,improve product performance,beautify appearance,and improve consumer satisfaction,which enhances the quality of export products.Third,digital economy can use imported intermediates to replace domestic production factors and improve export products quality.Fourth,digital economy weakens the impact of geographical distance on the quality of export products through digital technologies such as the Internet,while strengthens the impact of cultural distance and institutional distance on the quality of export products.From the perspective of structural factors,first,digital economy has significantly improved the average export product quality of incumbent enterprises.Second,digital economy has promoted the expansion of the market share of enterprises with higher export product quality.Third,the development of the digital economy is conducive to enterprises with higher quality than the average export products of the city to enter the market.Fourth,the competitive effect brought about by the digital economy forces enterprises that are lower than the average quality of the city’s export products to withdraw from the market.This paper further investigates the changing international status of China’s export products in the upgrading process of the export products quality.Taking the US import market as an example,it is found that in the era of digital economy,the quality level structure of China’s export products has changed,the proportion of medium-quality products has increased,and the proportion of high-quality and low-quality products has decreased.Chapter 6 summarizes the full text and puts forward relevant policy recommendations.In order to improve the quality of China’s manufacturing export products,get rid of the current trade dilemma,and achieve efficient and high-quality development of manufacturing power and trade,China should accelerate the digital transformation of the industry and promote the application of the digital economy in international trade.We should deepen trade liberalization and expand import channels of intermediate goods,and take effective measures to encourage enterprise innovation,especially joint research and development among multinational enterprises.Meanwhile,we can formulate and implement relevant policies and measures related to the digital economy,and adopt corresponding technical support,financial assistance and industrial support to help enterprises successfully complete digital transformation. |
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