Digital Trade,Digital Industrial Value Chains and Industrial Structure Upgrading:Based on the Empirical Test of Developing Countries
As a new form of trade,digital trade has become a key driving force behind the transformation of global value chains.By leveraging the robust externalities of digital technology,emerging countries and developing countries are no longer constrained by disparities in core technologies.Instead,they have seized the opportunity to leapfrog their growth by engaging in the fragmentation transfer of industries.Therefore,it is important and meaningful to study how digital trade can upgrade the industrial structure of developing countries.Based on this,this paper will explore the impact mechanism of digital trade on industrial structure upgrading in developing countries through theoretical construction and empirical research.This exploration is helpful for understanding the development direction of digital trade in developing countries,identifying effective pathways for industrial structure upgrading,and reconstructing the competitive advantage of trade.It also provides a basis for building a more fair,reasonable,open,and inclusive governance system and development environment for the digital industrial value chain.Based on cross-country panel data from 1999 to 2018,this paper constructs indicators for digital trade,the embeddedness of digital industrial value chains,status index,and industrial structure upgrading.It employs panel bidirectional fixed effect models,mediation effect models,and threshold effect models for empirical tests.Drawing on theoretical mechanisms,this paper innovatively explores the impact of developing digital trade on the upgrading of industrial structure in developing countries from the perspective of the embeddedness of digital industry value chain.The main findings of our research are summarized as follows:(1)Digital trade is an important factor in promoting the upgrading of the industrial structure in developing countries,and it plays a facilitating role in the advancement of the industrial structure,the speed of transformation,and the rationalization of the industrial structure.Further,the positive effect of digital trade on the upgrading of industrial structure is greater in countries with higher trade freedom,investment freedom and government integrity.In addition,developing countries participating in the construction of the Belt and Road can effectively contribute to the upgrading of industrial structure through digital trade.(2)The mechanism test found that the integration of digital trade into the digital industrial value chains will have a positive effect on the industrial structure upgrading of developing countries by reducing the degree of backward embeddedness and increasing the degree of forward embeddedness.(3)After crossing the threshold value of value chain leapfrog effect and user scale effect,the role of digital trade on industrial structure upgrading will show marginal incremental effect.Developing countries accelerate the development of digital trade and participate in the division of labor in the value chain of digital industry,which is a new direction to realize industrial structure upgrading.Through the above research,this paper provides an effective scientific decision-making basis for developing countries to accelerate the development of digital trade,participate in the division of labor in the digital industry value chain,and get rid of the"low-end locking trap".The potential additional contributions of this paper are as follows:Firstly,based on the measured data of digital trade,it explores the influencing factors of industrial structure upgrading at the macro level,which provides valuable ideas for developing countries to promote high-quality economic development and enhance industrial competitiveness.Secondly,considering the economic development context of developing countries,the paper explores the transmission channels through which digital trade impacts industrial structure upgrading under various embedding methods.This offers innovative perspectives for these countries to achieve sustainable development in the digital economy era.Thirdly,the non-linear impact of digital trade on the upgrading of industrial structure is explored from both supply-side and demand-side perspectives based on the networked characteristics of digital trade,which provides a reasonable reference basis for policies such as strengthening the digital infrastructure of developing countries.
digital tradeindustrial structure upgradingdigital industry value chain
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