数字化转型、知识溢出与企业全要素生产率——来自制造业上市公司的经验证据

Digital transformation,knowledge spillover,and enterprise total factor productivity:empirical evidence from listed manufacturing companies

在当前中国数字经济和实体经济逐渐融合的发展背景下,深入探索企业数字化转型与全要素生产率的关系对于经济实现高质量发展具有重要意义。基于2007—2019年制造业上市公司年报文本数据构建了企业数字化指数,在此基础上研究了数字化转型对企业全要素生产率的影响,并采用倾向得分匹配法为数字化转型程度高的企业构造了各种特征相似的数字化转型程度低的企业对照样本,通过反事实方法实证检验了数字化转型对企业间知识溢出的影响。主要结论如下:(1)企业数字化转型对其全要素生产率有显著的提升作用,在进行一系列稳健性检验后此结论仍然成立。(2)随着时间推移,数字化转型对企业全要素生产率的影响更为明显,这一方面可能表明当期所进行的数字化转型举措对企业的影响存在一定滞后,另一方面可能意味着测算得到的数字化指数部分反映了企业对数字化转型的预期或前期投入。(3)数字化转型能够通过加速企业间知识溢出进而促进其全要素生产率的提升,因此数字化增强了经济内生增长动力。研究结论为数字经济与实体经济的融合效果提供了微观证据,具有重要的政策含义:政府应通过政策倾斜等方式鼓励企业进行数字化转型,同时采取各项措施降低知识溢出的外部门槛,通过数字化转型与知识溢出的良性互动,推动经济实现高质量发展。

With the gradual integration of China’s digital economy and real economy,an in-depth exploration of the relationship between enterprise digital transformation and total factor productivity is of great significance for achieving high-quality economic development.Based on text data from the annual reports of listed manufacturing companies from 2007 to 2019,this paper constructs a corporate digital index and studies the impact of digital transformation on corporate total factor productivity.In addition,this paper uses the propensity score matching method to construct a comparative sample of low-digital-transformation enterprises for high-digital-transformation enterprises;all other characteristics of these two types are similar.On this basis,this paper uses counterfactual methods to empirically test the impact of digital transformation on knowledge spillover between enterprises.The main findings are as follows:(1) The digital transformation of an enterprise has a significant positive effect on its total factor productivity;this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests.(2) The impact of digital transformation on enterprises’ total factor productivity becomes more obvious over time.This may indicate that the current digital transformation measures have a lagged impact,and on the other hand,it may indicate that the digital transformation index calculated here partly reflects the company’s expectations or initial investment in digital transformation.(3) Digital transformation can increase total factor productivity by accelerating the spillover of knowledge among enterprises.Therefore,digitization has strengthened the economy’s endogenous growth momentum.The findings provide micro evidence for the effect on the integration of the digital economy and real economy and have important policy implications.The government should encourage enterprises to carry out digital transformation through policy preference and other methods,and simultaneously adopt measures to lower the external sectoral threshold of knowledge spillover,promote the benign interaction between digital transformation and knowledge spillover,and ultimately promote the realization of high-quality economic development.