The Digital Economy and China's Structural Transformation——A Demand-side Perspective
In recent years,China's economy has been undergoing a transformation from high-speed growth to high-quality development,with a deepening structural transformation aligned with the goal of building a modernized economic system.Despite following Kuznets'law,China's structural transformation lags behind,and traditional factor-driven economic structure bottlenecks are becoming more apparent.Simultaneously,the digital economy has emerged as a key force globally,restructuring factor resources,reshaping the economic landscape,and altering the global competition paradigm.Its development serves as a new impetus for structural transformation.On the supply side,the digital economy promotes structural transformation by influencing the rate of technological progress between sectors.On the demand side,the digital economy promotes structural transformation by influencing the income elasticity of demand for products.However,there is a dearth of literature analyzing its impact on the demand side,particularly on the mechanism of structural transformation.This paper analyses how the digital economy development promotes structural transformation from the perspectives of technology and preference,especially adopting a demand-side perspective,elucidates the theoretical logic wherein digital economy development enhances market demand,subsequently promoting China's structural transformation.Utilizing China's provincial panel data from 2013-2021,the paper measures the level of digital economy development and empirically analyzes its impact on structural transformation using a fixed-effects model.The findings indicate that digital economy development significantly promotes both inter-industry and intra-industry structural transformation.Moreover,it influences structural transformation through channels that raise per capita income levels,increase degree of marketization and raise urbanization levels.Furthermore,there exists inter-industry and regional heterogeneity in the impact of digital economy development on structural transformation.In comparison with existing literature,this paper extends the research field in three key aspects.First,it introduces the role mechanism of market demand and urbanization effects from the demand level,expanding the study field of digital economy and structural transformation.Second,it clarifies structural transformation connotations from both inter-industry and intra-industry perspectives,providing evidence on how the development of digital economy promotes structural transformation.Third,it empirically examines the mechanisms of the per capita income effect,the degree of marketization effect and the urbanization effect,contributing to the empirical literature and offering insights at the policy level.The research reveals the mechanism by which digital economy development sustains structural transformation from the demand side.In formulating industrial development policies,departments should focus on the demand-pulling effect,leverage regional comparative advantages,increase investment in new infrastructure and communication technologies,and implement dynamic,differentiated digital economy development strategies.
digital economystructural transformationper capita incomedegree of marketizationurbanization
万方数据
