数字经济、产业升级与经济高质量发展——基于长江经济带11省市面板数据的实证研究

Digital economy,industrial upgrading and high-quality economic development——An empirical study based on panel data of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

快速发展的数字经济已日益成为推动经济高质量发展的重要力量和关键驱动因素。在构建经济高质量发展与数字经济发展评价指标体系并使用熵值法进行测算的基础上,利用长江经济带11省市2013—2019年的面板数据,实证探究数字经济推动经济高质量发展的内在机制。结果表明:数字经济对长江经济带高质量发展有显著的正向促进作用;从区域异质性来看,长江经济带下游地区的数字经济发展对经济高质量发展的推动作用要强于上游、中游地区;产业升级在数字经济推动经济高质量发展的过程中发挥显著的中介效应且其占比为34.77%,这充分说明促进产业升级是数字经济推动经济高质量发展的重要路径;产业升级的中介效应存在明显的地区差异:下游地区最强,上游地区次之,中游地区产业升级中介效应不明显。门槛模型检验结果显示:数字经济对长江经济带高质量发展存在双门槛效应,当跨越门槛值后影响效应呈递增趋势,数字经济对经济高质量发展的作用呈现非线性边际效应递增特征。

The rapid development of the digital economy has increasingly become an important force and key driving factor in promoting high-quality economic development.On the basis of constructing an evaluation system for high-quality economic development and digital economy development indicators and using entropy method for calculation,this article empirically explores the internal mechanism of digital economy promoting high-quality economic development using panel data from 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2013 to 2019.The research results indicate that the digital economy has a significant positive promoting effect on the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.The digital transformation and the injection of new formats and models into high-quality development have a significant effect on improving the quality and efficiency of the economic development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.Replacing the digital economic accounting indicators,the test results show that it still presents a significant driving effect on the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt,indicating that the test results of the promoting effect of the digital economy on the Yangtze River Economic Belt are stable.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the digital economy in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt plays a stronger role in promoting high-quality economic development than that in the upper and middle reaches.The digital economy can achieve high-quality economic development by promoting industrial upgrading,and industrial structure upgrading plays a significant intermediary effect in the process of promoting high-quality development in the digital economy,accounting for 34.77%.This fully demonstrates that promoting industrial upgrading is an important path for the digital economy to promote high-quality economic development.However,there are significant regional differences in the mediating effect of industrial upgrading,with downstream regions having a significant mediating effect of 27.78%,indicating that 27.78%of the impact of digital economy on high-quality economic development in downstream regions is transmitted by industrial upgrading,while upstream regions have a significant mediating effect of 26.64%,indicating that 26.64%of the impact of digital economy in upstream regions on high-quality economic development is transmitted through industrial upgrading.But,in the midstream region,the inclusion of industrial upgrading variables in the digital economy actually has a negative inhibitory effect on the high-quality development of the midstream economy.Observing the Soble robustness test,the results did not pass the significance level test,and the industrial upgrading in the midstream region did not produce a mediating effect.The digital economy directly promotes the high-quality economic development in the midstream region.This article further uses the Bootstrap method for testing and still finds that its indirect effect is not significant.There are two main reasons why the intermediary effect in the midstream region is not significant.On the one hand,the midstream region has not yet formed a complete industrial system to support high-quality economic development in the process of industrial upgrading,and some industries still have the phenomenon of being unable to digitize,and digit and industries cannot be perfectly integrated.On the other hand,industrial upgrading is still being promoted,and a large amount of digital benefits and digital dividends have not been well stimulated and created.Compared to this,it is possible that the direct application of digital technology in daily life services may generate more significant economic benefits.The threshold model results show that there is a double threshold effect of the digital economy on the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.When the threshold value is crossed,the impact effect shows an increasing trend,and the effect of the digital economy on the high-quality development of the economy shows a non-linear marginal effect increasing characteristic.When the development level of the digital economy is greater than the threshold value of 0.4431,its regression coefficient value is the highest and the positive promotion effect is the greatest.The externalities brought by the economies of scale,scope,and network in the digital economy will continue to expand with the advancement of digital development.All participating entities can achieve digital information resource sharing and data resource acceleration through digital technology on their platforms,leading to stronger positive externalities of the digital economy and a clear trend of increasing returns to scale.Finally,in order to further test the robustness of the test results on the impact of the digital economy on the Yangtze River Economic Belt,this article adopts control fixed effects and instrumental variable test methods for testing,and the test results are all significant,indicating that the empirical results of the positive driving effect of the digital economy on high-quality development are robust.