关键词: 数字连接, 国际海缆, 数字服务贸易, 数据增值服务

Abstract: 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.

Key words: Digital Connectivity, International Submarine Cables, Digital Services Trade, Value-added Data Service