高质量数字连接驱动了数字服务出口增长吗?——来自国际海缆扩展的经验证据

Does High-quality Digital Connectivity Drive the Export Growth of Digital Services: The Empirical Evidence from the Expansion of International Submarine Cables

本文以国际海缆扩展深度作为衡量高质量数字连接的新指标,刻画了国际海缆的连接数量、连接强度、连接广度与一国数字服务出口的关联,提出高质量数字连接是驱动数字服务出口增长的重要动力,它与数据增值服务优势的互补作用是一国数字服务出口比较优势的重要来源。研究结果表明,一国数字服务出口随着国际海缆连接数量的提高而增长。国际海缆通过提供满足大数据跨境传输所需的容量与带宽,来缓解数字鸿沟约束,降低市场进入的固定成本,从而促进数字服务出口。对比较优势来源的进一步讨论表明,一国的数字连接能力与数据增值服务优势构成数字服务出口促进的关键互补条件,即国际海缆扩展的数字服务出口促进效应随本国数据增值服务能力的提高而增强,且数据增值服务优势关于国际海缆扩展的数字服务出口促进效应的正向调节作用随国际海缆扩展的深化而加强。对不同扩展模式即扩展路径、地理范围和投资主体的拓展性分析还表明,连接强度相较于连接广度扩展、洲内相较于洲际扩展、传统电信商相较于数字平台商主导扩展的数字服务出口促进效应更强。上述结论为提高数字连接质量来驱动我国数字服务出口增长提供了经验证据,也为扩展国际海缆基础设施以实现数字服务出口结构升级提供了决策参考。

This paper takes the expansion of international submarine cables as a new indicator to measure the high-quality digital connectivity,and depicts the relationship between the connectivity scale,strength,and breadth of international submarine cables and country exports in digital services.High-quality digital connectivity plays the role in driving the growth of digital service exports,and its complementary role with the advantages of value-added data service is an important source of country-level comparative advantage in digital service exports.Empirical results show that country-level digital service exports grow with the expansion of international submarine cables,which is explained by the role of submarine cables in easing the digital divide and reducing the fixed costs of market entry by providing the required capacity and bandwidth of big data cross-border transmission.Furthermore,the role of international submarine cable increases with the enhancement of value-added data service advantage,whose positive adjustment effect is strengthened with the deepening of international submarine cable expansion—the two are key complementary conditions of digital service export promotion.The extended analysis shows the role of submarine cable in the digital service export promotion is stronger in connectivity strength than breadth,intra-continental expansion than inter-continental expansion,traditional communications providers than digital platforms.The above conclusions provide empirical evidence for the promotion of export growth and upgrade in export structure of digital services by providing high-quality digital connectivity infrastructure.