Abstract
At present, the digital economy, which takes information technology and data as the key elements, is booming and has become an important force in promoting the economic growth of various countries. In order to explore the current dynamic trend of China's digital economy development and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality economic development, this paper measures the digital economic development index of 30 cities in China from the three dimensions of digital infrastructure, digital industry, and digital integration, uses panel data of 30 cities in China from 2015 to 2019 to construct an econometric model for empirical analysis, and verifies the mediating effect of technological progress between the digital economy and high-quality economic development. The results show that (1) The development level of China's digital economy is increasing year by year, that the growth of digital infrastructure is obvious, and that the development of the digital industry is relatively slow. (2) Digital infrastructure, digital industry and digital integration all have significant positive effects on regional total factor productivity, and the influence coefficients are 0.2452, 0.0773 and 0.3458 respectively. (3) Regarding the transmission mechanism from the digital economy to the high-quality economic development, the study finds that the mediating effect of technological progress is 0.1527, of which the mediating effect of technological progress in the eastern, northeast, central and western regions is 1.70%, 9.25%, 28.89% and 21.22% respectively. (4) From the perspective of spatial distribution, the development level of the digital economy in the eastern region is much higher than that in other non-eastern regions, and the development of digital economy in the eastern region has a higher marginal contribution rate to the improvement of the total factor productivity. This study can provide a theoretical basis and practical support for the government to formulate policies for the development of the digital economy.
Highlights
China’s fourteenth five-year plan for national economic and social development proposes to build a new development pattern of domestic and international dual cycles
The results show that the digital economy and technological progress play a significant role in improving total factor productivity and both are significant at the 0.01 level
This paper empirically examines the effect of the digital economy on high-quality economic development, demonstrates its transmission mechanism from the perspective of technological progress, and draws the following main conclusions
Summary
China’s fourteenth five-year plan for national economic and social development proposes to build a new development pattern of domestic and international dual cycles. Other scholars believe that in the development of China’s digital economy there are some problems, such as unbalanced, inadequate and uncoordinated development These problems are mainly concentrated in the areas comprising the digital infrastructure, the degree of upgrading of the digital industry, information network security, and the deep integration of digital technology penetration and traditional industries. The digital economy is in line with the new development concept of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, and in China is becoming a major strategic development direction, which will effectively promote the high-quality development of China’s economy. On the basis of the evaluation index of the digital economy, an econometric model is constructed to study the effect of the digital economy on high-quality economic development, and technological progress is introduced as an intermediary variable between the two aspects, developing thereby a more objective study of the influence mechanism of the digital economy on high-quality economic development and an analysis from a new perspective. Our findings have good policy reference value for China in efforts to accelerate the development of the digital economy, narrow the regional “digital economic gap” and promote highquality economic development
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