数字经济能克服服务业“成本病”吗?——来自城市层面的经验证据

Can Digital Economy Overcome Baumol’s Cost Disease in Service Industry?——Empirical Evidence from Chinese Cities

服务经济时代,提升服务业生产率、缓解服务业“成本病”是中国经济实现高质量发展的重要路径。本文首先从理论层面来分析数字经济影响服务业“成本病”的内在机制,发现数字经济并不必然能够缓解服务业“成本病”问题,这取决于数字经济对资本和劳动两种生产要素的相对影响程度。其次,本文利用2011—2019年中国地级及以上城市层面的样本数据,对理论模型的结论进行实证检验,结果表明中国数字经济的发展可以缓解服务业“成本病”问题。但是数字经济对服务业“成本病”的缓解作用存在异质性,在经济发展水平较高、教育水平较高、规模较大以及服务业发展水平较高的城市,数字经济对服务业“成本病”的缓解作用较大。本文的研究结论为供给侧结构性改革下中国服务业发展动能转换、实现服务经济高质量发展提供了有益借鉴。

In a service industry-dominated economic structure,Baumol’s cost disease has a negative effect on economic growth rates and economic development.Consequently,enhancing the service industry’s production efficiency and alleviating Baumol’s cost disease become crucial to the high-quality economic development in China.Meanwhile,the positive role of the digital economy in improving production efficiency offers new opportunities to overcome Baumol’s cost disease,making it essential to study the role of the digital economy in mitigating or even eliminating Baumol’s cost disease in the service industry.This paper theoretically examines the impact of the digital economy on Baumol’s cost disease of the service industry and its internal mechanism by constructing a general equilibrium model.Theoretical analysis indicates that the role of the digital economy in alleviating Baumol’s cost disease of the service industry depends on the relative influence of the digital economy on capital and labor factors.Then,based on the prefectural-level data from 2011 to 2019 in China,this paper empirically tests the theoretical model with a fixed effects model.The findings are as follows.The digital economy significantly narrows the gap between the total factor productivity(TFP)growth rates of the service and manufacturing industries,indicating the mitigation effect of the digital economy on Baumol’s cost disease of the service industry.However,this mitigation effect is heterogeneous and more prominent in regions with higher levels of economic development,education,size,and services development.Additionally,the mechanism test shows that the digital economy elevates the TFP growth rate of the service industry by influencing labor factors,thus mitigating Baumol’s cost disease.However,it promotes the TFP growth rate of the manufacturing industry by influencing capital factors,thus exacerbating Baumol’s cost disease.Therefore,it is suggested to accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure,increase the corresponding investment in digital education,and promote the equalization of digital infrastructure in all regions,so as to prevent the emergence of the digital divide phenomenon.The main contributions of this paper are twofold.First,it constructs a general equilibrium model to discuss the influence of the digital economy on Baumol’s cost disease of the service industry and examine the issue from a theoretical perspective.Second,it expands the research scope from a single sector to multiple sectors,incorporating both manufacturing and service industries into the theoretical model,and then analyzes the influence of the digital economy on the TFP growth rates of these industries from theoretical and empirical perspectives.The conclusions provide valuable insights for transforming the driving force in the service industry and achieving high-quality development of the service economy under the supply-side structural reform in China.