A Study On The Impact Of The Digital Economy On China’s Export Competitiveness

In recent years,economic globalisation has been hit by backwash and headwinds,the external economic environment has deteriorated,protectionism has risen,the impact of the new pneumonia epidemic is far-reaching,the instability of the international situation has increased significantly,and the world is undergoing a major change unprecedented in a century.Against this backdrop,the new round of technological revolution and industrial change has brought about fierce competition,while also giving rise to new opportunities for development.The digital economy,which is the future direction of the global economy,plays a role in stabilising and accelerating economic development.The digital economy is not only a new economic growth point for China,but has also become an important fulcrum for transforming and upgrading China’s traditional industries,as well as a key support for unblocking the domestic and international economic cycle.Exports are an important driver of China’s economic growth,and the development of the digital economy is also an important path to drive China’s export competitiveness.It is not enough to rely solely on the traditional approach of investing large amounts of resources to improve China’s export competitiveness;it also needs to be supported by technological advances and the like to achieve it.The digital economy can optimise trade links through technological advances,thereby improving trade efficiency,reducing trade costs and enhancing export competitiveness.Export competitiveness is not only influenced by the level of development of the digital economy,but is also related to the concentration of manufacturing industries.China is a major manufacturing country,and manufacturing exports have contributed significantly to the long-term development of the Chinese economy-the share of China’s manufacturing exports in total merchandise exports has long been above90%.Since the 18 th Party Congress,the level of manufacturing agglomeration in China has continued to rise,smoothing the cycle of industrial chains and supply chains and driving steady industrial growth,thereby driving high-quality development of regional manufacturing industries and thus enhancing the competitiveness of regional exports.This paper focuses on the impact of the digital economy on China’s export competitiveness as a research objective,and also discusses the threshold effect of manufacturing agglomeration on the relationship between the digital economy and export competitiveness.Firstly,the research background and significance of this paper are explained,the research results of a large number of domestic and foreign scholars on the digital economy and export competitiveness are sorted out,and relevant concepts such as digital economy and export competitiveness are defined.Secondly,the mechanism of the impact of the digital economy on export competitiveness is discussed from three aspects: direct effect,intermediary effect and non-linear effect,and the research hypothesis is put forward to lay the foundation for the later empirical study.Once again,the entropy weight method is used to construct a digital economy index system,the Digital Economy DEI Index,using digital infrastructure,digital industrialisation and industrial digitisation as the three first-level indicators,and the ECI index is used to measure the export competitiveness of each province(city)in China.The situation was analysed.From then on,the relationship between the digital economy and export competitiveness is empirically examined using panel data of 30 Chinese provinces(cities)from 2013 to2020,and the mediating mechanism of the digital economy affecting export competitiveness is analysed,as well as the non-linear moderating effect of manufacturing agglomeration on the digital economy and export competitiveness.The main findings include:(1)the digital economy has a positive contribution to export competitiveness at the 1% significance level,and this finding still holds after three robustness tests and a placebo test;(2)the digital economy can improve export competitiveness by promoting technological progress,i.e.there is a mediating transmission effect of technological progress in the digital economy on export competitiveness,and its mediating effect is 0.674,and it is a partial mediating effect;(3)There is a threshold effect of manufacturing agglomeration in the digital economy on export competitiveness,that is,when the level of manufacturing agglomeration is below the threshold value of 0.39,the regression coefficient of the DEI index of the digital economy is 1.436,and it passes the test at the 1%significance level,indicating that the digital economy has a significant promotion effect on export competitiveness;when the manufacturing agglomeration crosses the threshold value of 0.39,the regression coefficient of the DEI index of the digital economy drops rapidly to 0.565,and although the digital economy still has a positive effect on export competitiveness,it does not pass the significance test.Finally,combined with the findings of this paper,relevant countermeasures and suggestions are put forward on how to use the digital economy to improve export competitiveness.