An Empirical Test Of Digital Trade Enabling High-Quality Economic Development In The Yangtze River Delta

The Yangtze River Economic Belt is a very important part of the southern economy,and the Yangtze River Delta is the core region of the Yangtze River Economic Belt with a large scale of economy and concentrated industrial development.The high quality development of the Yangtze River Delta economy plays a very important role in the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the national economy as a whole.The outbreak of the new pneumonia epidemic in early2020 has led to profound changes in economic forms,systems and governance models at home and abroad,and digital trade is set to reverse the current volatile and fragile economic situation and rapidly become a new driver of trade development.Today,the digital economy has become the main driver and stabiliser of China’s high-quality economic development,and digital trade has become a major part of the digital economy,which is of vital importance to the high-quality development of the economy and society.Based on the research of digital trade and economic quality development,this paper analyzes the mechanism of digital trade enabling economic quality development from the perspectives of five dimensions of economic quality development and regional heterogeneity respectively and puts forward corresponding hypotheses.Based on the current situation of digital trade development and high-quality economic development in the Yangtze River Delta,13 indicators in 4 dimensions are selected to measure the level of digital trade development in 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from2010 to 2020,and 16 indicators in 5 dimensions are selected to measure the level of high-quality economic development in 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta from 2010 to 2020.The results show that,with the exception of Shanghai,which has always been the most important city in the Yangtze River Delta.The results show that,except for Shanghai,which has always maintained a high level of digital trade development and economic quality development,other provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta,especially Anhui Province,are still lagging behind in terms of digital trade and economic quality development,which shows that the Yangtze River Delta region has a prominent problem of uncoordinated development.Based on the fixed-effects model and the quantile model,the role of digital trade on the high-quality economic development of the Yangtze River Delta was tested empirically.The empirical results show that:(1)the improvement of the level of digital trade development can directly and effectively empower the high quality development of the Yangtze River Delta economy,and the higher the level of high quality development of the economy,the greater the impact of the level of digital trade development on it.(2)The results of the dimensional heterogeneity test conclude that there is variability in the impact of the level of digital trade development on the five dimensions of quality economic development in the Yangtze River Delta,with the exception of the green development dimension where the other four dimensions are all facilitative.This is consistent with the quantile regression results of the full sample.Comparing the magnitude of the quantile regression coefficients,it can be seen that the level of digital trade development has the greatest impact on the dimension of open development,followed by shared development,innovation development,coordinated development and green development.(3)The results of the regional heterogeneity test conclude that the level of digital trade development in digitally developed regions and digitally backward regions will only play an effective role in promoting economic quality development when the economic quality development reaches a high level,while the level of digital trade development in digitally developed regions does not have a significant impact on economic quality development.(4)After adding the core explanatory variables with a one-period lag,replacing the explanatory variables measurement method and replacing the explanatory variables measurement method and a series of other robustness tests,the findings of this paper still hold.Based on the findings of the empirical study,corresponding countermeasures are proposed:(1)Build a digital trade platform together,share digital trade development resources and enhance digital trade development.(2)Actively promote foreign digital trade and expand the openness of digital trade.(3)Optimize digital trade strategies according to local conditions and improve the adaptability of digital trade policies.(4)Increase digital technology innovation and focus on the comprehensiveness of digital trade talent training.