数字经济的出口质量效应研究

Research on the Export Quality Effect of Digital Economy

文章基于中国海关数据库估算出2013~2019年中国31个省5850个产品的出口质量,并利用互联网基建、互联网使用、互联网企业和数字金融四个二级指标构建省级数字经济发展水平,进而考察数字经济对中国出口质量的影响及其内在机制。研究发现,数字经济能够显著地提升出口质量,且这一结果在经过反向因果、选取历史数据作为工具变量和加入“宽带中国”作为外生政策冲击等内生性检验后仍然成立。这种提升效果会随着产品质量差异幅度增加而更加明显,并具有区域差异,中部地区和出口到低收入国家的产品质量提升效果更为突出。然而,随着各省份嵌入全球价值链程度的提高,数字经济对出口质量的提升效果会有所减弱。从影响渠道来看,数字经济主要通过产品内质量升级效应和产品再配置效应来促进出口质量提升。文章在一定程度上加深了对数字经济影响出口质量的内在机制及其作用差异的理解,为中国制定有关数字经济政策提供了理论支持。

The article estimates the export quality of 5,850 products from 31 provinces in China from 2013 to 2019 based on the China Customs database,and uses secondary indicators such as Internet infrastructure,Internet use,Internet companies,and digital finance to build a provincial-level digital economy development level.Furthermore,we examine the impact of the digital economy on the quality of our country’s exports and its internal mechanism.The study finds that the digital economy can significantly improve the quality of exports,and this result is still valid after endogenous tests such as reverse causality,selection of historical data as instrumental variables,and the addition of"Broadband China"as an exogenous policy impact.This improvement effect will be more obvious as the difference in product quality increases,and there are regional differences.The quality improvement effect of products in the central region and exported to low-income countries will be more prominent.However,as the degree in which provinces are embedded in the global value chain increases,the effect of the digital economy on the improvement of export quality will be weakened.Finally,from the perspective of influence channels,the digital economy mainly promotes the improvement of export quality through the product quality upgrades effects and product reconfiguration effects.To a certain extent,the article has deepened our understanding of the internal mechanism of the digital economy that affects the quality of exports and the differences in its effects,and provided theoretical support for our country to formulate relevant digital economy policies.