数字经济与我国制造业出口技术复杂度——基于中介效应与门槛效应的检验

Digital Economy and Export Technical Sophistication of China’s Manufacturing Industry:Test Based on Mediating Effect and Threshold Effect

数字经济为我国制造业增强价值增值能力与产业竞争力提供了重要机遇和动力。文章利用2011-2018年中国制造业省级层面的面板数据对数字经济促进我国制造业出口技术复杂度提升的总体作用、异质性影响和间接机制进行了实证检验。研究发现,数字经济发展总体上显著提升了我国制造业的出口技术复杂度,这一作用在技术密集型行业表现得更为显著。在替换被解释变量、采用工具变量等一系列稳健性检验后,文章的研究结论依然成立。中介效应检验发现,降低交易成本、促进技术溢出、推动产业融合是数字经济促进制造业出口技术复杂度提升的三条基本路径。进一步研究发现,数字经济对制造业出口技术复杂度的提升作用还受制造业自身数字化、智能化改造程度的影响,表现出门槛效应,超过一定界限后,过度推进制造业数字化、智能化升级反而会削弱数字经济对制造业出口技术复杂度的促进作用;分行业看,相较于技术密集型行业,劳动密集型和资本密集型行业中智能化升级的门槛值均较低,智能化升级存在过度的倾向。为此,各地区应努力提升数字经济发展水平,夯实数字经济发展基础,优化数字经济发展环境,完善数字经济治理体系和制度保障,有序推进制造业数字化、智能化改造,打造优良的数字经济产业生态。

Digital economy provides an important opportunity and driving force for China’s manufacturing industry to improve the export technical sophistication. However, with the rapid development of digital economy, some manufacturing industries blindly regard increasing the proportion of hardware facilities such as industrial robots and intelligent factories as the index of digitalization and intellectualization of manufacturing industry, and ignore the building of industrial ecology of digital economy and the improvement of the effectiveness of digitalization and intellectualization of manufacturing industry, resulting in investment imbalance and efficiency loss. On the contrary, it will delay or even inhibit the improvement of the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. Therefore, objectively evaluating the role of digital economy in improving the export technical sophistication of China’s manufacturing industry, and taking practical and effective measures to orderly promote the digitization and intellectualization of manufacturing industry has become an important topic for China to enhance the international competitiveness of manufacturing industry and accelerate the construction of manufacturing power.Based on the panel data of China’s manufacturing industry at provincial level from 2011 to 2018, this paper empirically tests the overall role, heterogeneous impact and indirect mechanism of digital economy in promoting the improvement of China’s manufacturing export technical sophistication. The results show that the development of digital economy has significantly increased the export technical sophistication of China’s manufacturing industry, which is more significant in technology intensive industries. And reducing the transaction cost of manufacturing industry, promoting technology spillover and promoting industrial integration are the three basic paths for digital economy to promote the export technical sophistication of manufacturing industry. The promotion effect of digital economy on the export technical sophistication of manufacturing industry is affected by the degree of digitalized and intellectualized transformation of manufacturing industry, showing a certain threshold effect. After exceeding the certain limit, further promoting the digitalization and intellectualization of manufacturing industry will weaken the promotion effect of digital economy on the export technical sophistication of manufacturing industry. The policy implications of our results are profound, All regions should strive to improve the development level of digital economy, consolidate the development foundation of digital economy, optimize the development environment of digital economy, improve the governance system and institutional guarantee of digital economy, orderly promote the digitalization and intellectualization of manufacturing industry, and create an excellent industrial ecology of digital economy.This paper makes some contributions.First, the method of measuring the development level of digital economy by using the input-output relationship is usually as of 2014, while the digital economy has accelerated in recent years. This paper constructs a comprehensive index of the development level of digital economy from 2011 to 2018 from the aspects of digital economy infrastructure, digital industrialization and industrial digitization, which alleviates the problem of low consistency between the reality of digital economy development and the measurement index in time span. Second, this paper discusses the mechanism of digital economy affecting the manufacturing export technical sophistication from three aspects: transaction cost, technology spillover and industrial integration, and clarifies the mechanism and path. Third, taking the development of manufacturing intellectualization into the analysis framework, this paper explores the coordination and adaptation of manufacturing intellectualization level in the process of promoting the manufacturing export technical sophistication by digital economy.