数字经济发展能否改善中国资源错配

Can the Development of Digital Economy Improve China's Resource Misallocation?

数字经济作为一种新经济形态,改变了市场要素供给结构,为资源配置提供了新机制。基于资源配置理论,采用2011—2019年中国省级面板数据,从多维指标构建数字经济发展指数,使用静态和动态模型检验数字经济发展水平对资源错配的影响。结果发现:(1)资源错配存在一定的路径依赖性,即过去的要素错配显著影响当前资源配置效率,数字经济发展能够显著改善中国资本和劳动力错配,替换变量和引入工具变量后,其改善效应具有稳健性;(2)数字经济发展通过提高市场化程度、促进金融发展、提高对外开放度等途径间接改善资源错配;(3)数字经济具有显著空间效应,能够有效改善本地区资源错配,但会加剧邻近地区资源错配;(4)数字经济对东部地区、产能过剩水平较高、资源配置过度地区资源错配的改善效应较强。研究结论有助于从资源配置视角加深对数字经济红利效应的理解,并通过发展数字经济改善资源错配现状、释放过剩产能,从而为经济增长提供新动力。

The economic problems such as market factor distortion,resource misallocation and overcapacity hinder China's economic development.Resource misallocation caused by factor distortion is an important reason for the difference in economic growth rate.It can effectively promote economic growth by optimizing resource allocation.As a new economic pattern,the digital economy pays more attention to the importance of digital data in economic development,changes the supply structure of market factors,and provides a new mechanism for improving resource allocation.So the current academic and industrial research centers on how to release the driving force of digital economy on economic development.The essence of improving resource misallocation is to improve factor allocation efficiency,alleviate factor distortion and reduce the degree of resource misallocation to make the actual production closer to the production frontier.Drawing on the resource allocation theory and the balanced panel data of 29 provinces in China from 2011 to 2019,this study constructs the digital economy development indices from multi-dimensional indicators.By calculating the capital and labor misallocation indices,it employs the static and dynamic models,and uses a variety of measurement methods to empirically test the impact of the development level of digital economy on China's factor resource misallocation.The discussion on the improvement effect of digital economy on resource misallocation has deepened the understanding of the technical dividend of digital economy,providing practical significance to improve the allocation of resources in various regions and promote economic development.It is found that there is a certain path dependence in China's resource misallocation,that is,the past factor misallocation will significantly affect the current allocation efficiency.The development of digital economy can effectively improve the misallocation of capital and labor force in various regions of China and improve the efficiency of resource allocation.It has become a new driving force to promote economic growth.After substituting the variables and introducing the instrumental variables for robustness test,its improvement effect still exists significantly.The development of digital economy can indirectly affect the misallocation of capital and labor force in various regions by promoting market-oriented development and the level of financial development,as well as improving the degree of opening to the outside world,so as to improve the allocation efficiency of capital and labor force.The development of digital economy has a significant spatial impact which can effectively improve the resource misallocation in the region,but will aggravate the resource misallocation in some adjacent areas,mainly because of the "Matthew effect" and "digital technology gap" in the development of digital economy in various regions.Further analysis shows that there are obvious heterogeneity differences in the improvement effect of digital economy development on resource misallocation.The difference of overcapacity level and the direction of resource misallocation in different regions and regions have a significant impact on the improvement effect of digital economy;specifically,the digital economy has a greater effect on the improvement of resource misallocation in the eastern region,regions with high overcapacity level and excessive resource allocation,and less effect on the improvement of resource misallocation in the central and western regions,regions with low overcapacity level and insufficient resource allocation.The marginal contribution of this paper lies in three aspects.First,this paper brings the development of digital economy and the misallocation of factor resources into a unified analysis framework,deeply analyzes the internal mechanism of the development of digital economy affecting resource allocation,and strengthens the theoretical research on the relationship between digital economy and resource allocation.Second,on the basis of the calculation of the resource distortion coefficient of each region,the static and dynamic panel models are used to empirically test the direct,indirect and spatial impact of the development level of digital economy on the misallocation of capital and labor force in each region,deepening the empirical research in the field of digital economy.Third,it focuses on whether regional differences,differences in the level of regional overcapacity and different directions of resource misallocation have an impact on the improvement effect of digital economy,deepens the understanding of the heterogeneity of dividend effect of digital economy,and provides a practical reference for the implementation of differentiated and dynamic digital economy development strategy.In addition,this paper uses a variety of methods to test the endogeneity and robustness,which better improves the robustness of the research conclusion.