A Study On The Impact Of Digital Transformation On The Export Technical Complexity Of Producer Services

In recent years,emerging information technologies such as cloud computing,artificial intelligence and mobile Internet have continuously penetrated the entire economic environment,giving rise to new forms of business such as remote working,financial platforms and smart logistics.Producer services have developed rapidly,replacing traditional business models and enhancing their tradability in international trade.Producer services is the key intermediate input in the manufacturing process.Its development affects the position of manufacturing industry in the global value chain and the international competitiveness of service trade in most countries.Compared with developed countries,most of the producer services products in developing countries are at the bottom of the global value chain.In our country producer services are still in the development stage,and its export mainly depends on lowtechnology intensive sectors.Therefore,research on how to improve the export quality of producer services becomes particularly important,which is of great significance for promoting the high-quality development of China’s service trade.Based on the network readiness index of 48 economies from 2006 to 2015,the value added of trade data of nine producer services sectors,and industry-level international trade data,this paper constructs indicators of digital transformation of producer services for international comparison.Using the fixed effects model of industry and time,this paper studies the effect of digital transformation of producer services on the increase of export technical complexity,and conducts robustness and mechanism tests.The empirical results are as follows:(1)The benchmark regression shows that digital transformation significantly increases the technical complexity of producer services export;(2)According to the heterogeneity analysis results of industry technology intensity,it is found that the improvement effect is most significant for the producer service sector with high technology intensity,followed by the sector with low technology intensity.(3)Mechanism analysis shows that innovation effect and transaction cost saving are important mechanisms for digital transformation to improve the technical complexity of producer services export.(4)By identifying the threshold effect of the network readiness index,it is found that the impact of the digital transformation of producer services on the technical complexity of its export has significant nonlinear characteristics,and there is a double threshold: if the network readiness index of a country exceeds 3.6 or 5.05,the improvement effect will be significantly increased.Based on theoretical analysis and empirical research,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations:(1)Strengthen the infrastructure of the digital economy and improve the environment for its development.(2)Formulate relevant policies to reduce the resistance to digital transformation of service enterprises.(3)Attach importance to the cultivation of digital talents and scientific research innovation to continuously provide energy for the development of service-oriented enterprises in the information age.