Structure Evolution And Influence Factors Of Trade Preference Network Of Digital Products Along The Belt And Road

According to the《14th Five-year Plan for The Development of Digital Economy》,the competitiveness and influence of China’s digital economy will steadily increase by 2025,and the added value of the core industries of the digital economy will rise to 10% of GDP from7.8% in 2020,that the Digital Silk Road should be vigorously developed.As one of the core industries of the digital economy,digital product manufacturing is the foundation of digital trade and provides technical support products for digital trade.How to promote the cooperation of digital product trade in the Belt and Road is one of the core contents of the high-quality development of the Belt and Road and the construction of the Digital Silk Road.In this paper,theoretical analysis and empirical analysis are combined to study the structural evolution and influencing factors of the Belt and Road digital product trade preference network,and to provide policy suggestions on how to promote the construction of "digital Silk Road" and the development of China’s digital product manufacturing industry.Specifically,the first chapter puts forward the research background and significance of this paper,reviews relevant literature such as digital trade and social network analysis,finds the entry point of the problem,and determines the research method,content and innovation points.The second chapter clarifies the concepts related to digital product trade and trade preference,and expounds the theories related to comparative advantage and social network.The third chapter analyzes the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of digital product trade under the Belt and Road Initiative based on bilateral trade data of digital products from 2000 to2019.The fourth chapter is based on the preference index to build trade network,"area" digital products trade preferences from the overall to local to the individual,layer upon layer thoroughly analyzed the structure characteristics of evolution.In chapter fifth,the Temporal Exponential Random Graph Model(TERGM)is used to analyze the influencing factors of network and further explore the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative and bilateral migration on the formation of preference relationship.The sixth chapter extracts the main conclusions and puts forward policy suggestions on how to accelerate the construction of "digital Silk Road" and the development of China’s digital economy industry.The research shows that:(1)The overall trade in digital products along the Belt and Road shows a rapid growth trend.The trade map shows that developed countries such as Italy,Singapore and South Korea are becoming less important in trade,while emerging countries such as Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates are playing an increasingly important role.In addition,the breadth and depth of trade cooperation in digital products between China and the Belt and Road initiative is also increasing,gradually rising to the core of trade.(2)The trade preference network of digital products along the Belt and Road presents a "core-periphery" structure;The network can be divided into four communities,among which,the East Asian community led by China and the West Asian and Eastern European Community led by Italy play a two-way spillover role in the network,and the African community led by South Africa and India and the Latin American community play a net benefit role in the network.In the past 20 years,China’s status in the network has been constantly improving,and the ranking of all centrality indicators has been greatly improved.The network position has moved from the edge to the core circle,gradually replacing Singapore as the core of the East Asian community and India as the bridge between the East Asian community and the African community.(3)It is found that the trade preference network is influenced by endogenous structure such as reciprocity effect,rank effect and time-dependent effect,which have significant effects in different time periods and product types.Adjacent language and religion culture,digital trade rules and bilateral investment treaties,global value chain position,economic development,Internet infrastructure,free trade,foreign direct investment and exogenous factor has a positive effect on the formation preference relations network,geographic distance,institutional exogenous factors such as distance,property rights have a negative effect;The network is affected by both endogenous structure and exogenous factors.Considering one side alone may lead to bias of empirical results and insufficient fitting effect.(4)the Belt and Road Initiative has weakened the importance of geographical distance,language,religion,historical colonization and other factors in the formation of relations.Bilateral migration can enhance the positive effect of digital trade rules and bilateral investment agreements on relations,and also enhance the negative effect of institutional distance.