数字技术与企业出口质量升级——来自专利文本机器学习的证据

Digital Technology and the Upgrade of Export Quality:Evidence from Patent Text with Machine Learning

数字技术是支撑贸易数字化的重要基础,目前已逐渐成为新发展格局下推进贸易强国建设的强劲动能。本文基于2007~2015年中国制造业上市公司申请的数字技术领域专利文本,运用机器学习方法测算数字技术专利的创新度指标,进而考察异质性数字技术对企业出口质量的影响及作用机制。研究发现,应用数字技术能显著促进企业出口质量升级,这种促进作用主要由高创新度的颠覆性数字技术引起,而低创新度的渐进性数字技术对出口质量无显著影响。具体来说,颠覆性数字技术通过优化生产经营效率、促进服务化转型和加速创造性破坏三方面机制作用于企业出口质量。本文研究结论提供了数字技术赋能贸易高质量发展的微观层面经验证据,为进一步提升贸易数字化水平、推进数字强贸工程建设提供了参考。

Digital technology serves as the fundamental underpinning for trade digitization and a strong driving force for the advancement of trade power. An important question is whether and how firmlevel digitalization affects export quality. While a consensus has been reached in economic research that a firm's integration of digital technology can remarkably elevate export efficiency and advance export development,recent studies have identified a phenomenon termed the“digitalization paradox.”This paradox refers to instances where the implementation of digital technology does not yield anticipated benefits for firms' exports. We argue that this paradox can be explained by the heterogeneity degree of innovation of the adopted digital technologies,which is an important yet underexplored aspect in the research on firms' digitalization. In particular,firms may mainly benefit from the adoption of highly innovative(breakthrough) digital technologies but derive limited benefits from less innovative(incremental)digital technologies.In this study, drawing on a comprehensive patent text dataset and using machine learning methodologies,we construct a novel measurement of firms' digital technology. This measure distinctly classifies digital technologies into two:breakthrough and incremental. We carefully examine the validity of our measurement through cross-referencing with various objective identifications and evaluation systems associated with digital technology. Then,we thoroughly investigate the effect of heterogeneous digital technology adoption on export quality and the intrinsic mechanisms. Drawing on micro-level firm data from 2007 to 2015,we demonstrate that embracing digital technology can promote the upgrade of export quality. Specifically, we demonstrate that this elevation is predominantly attributed to the adoption of breakthrough digital technologies. In contrast,incremental digital technologies do not have a significant effect. This relationship is consistent across various robustness checks. To address potential endogeneity issues,we employ the instrumental variable two-stage least-squares regression estimator and leverage an exogenous policy shock as a quasi-natural experiment to ensure such a relationship can be interpreted as causal. By differentiating digital patents based on the number of applying entities and the technological domains they encompass,we ascertain that breakthrough digital technologies exert a greater influence on export quality when they are independently possessed by a firm or span multiple technological domains. Further analyses reveal that the integration of breakthrough digital technologies can bolster firms' productivity and operation efficiency,augment both input and output servitization,and expedite the“creative destruction”process,supplanting low-quality incumbent products with highquality new products and culminating in improved export quality. Conversely,we demonstrate that the application of incremental digital technologies has no significant impact on the aforementioned channels,except increasing the operating cost,and it adds no tangible advantages to a firm's export quality.The main contributions of this study are as follows. First,although previous studies predominantly focused on the impact of digital transformation(specifically,the application of digital technologies)on firms' export quality,our study pioneers an exploration into the heterogeneous effects of a firm's endogenous digital technology adoption. Hence,our results provide insights into the understanding of the economic effects of digital innovation and its interplay with a firm's export quality. Second,we provide a novel approach by quantitatively and objectively measuring the level of digital technology innovation of a firm. This approach overcomes various limitations of the previous measurement,such as the propensity to gauge digitalization based on the frequency of digitally oriented terminologies in annual reports,which may be prone to firms' exaggerations of their digitalization accomplishments. As such,our study paves the way for a more nuanced future study of firm digitalization. Third,our study reveals the differentiated impact path of heterogeneous digital technology adoption on firms' export quality upgrading. We highlight that while breakthrough digital technologies bolster export quality(primarily by augmenting production and operational efficiency,championing servitization,and fostering the creative construction process)incremental digital technologies remain inert in these avenues. Finally,our results reveal that firms encounter challenges in benefiting from external digital technology development from business partners,pointing to considerable obstacles in the inter-firm spillover of digital technology. This highlights the pivotal role played by individual firms in pioneering digital technology innovation. Overall, the conclusions improve our understanding of the role of digital technology in amplifying China's core competencies within the global trade arena.