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Digital Economy Development and Provincial Innovation Quality: Evidence from the Quality of the Patents
Li Tuochenet al
Statistical Research
2023, 40 (9):
92-106.
DOI: 10.19343/j.cnki.11–1302/c.2023.09.007
Improving the quality of innovation is a big step for China to achieve the goal of becoming an innovation power. The digital economy has become a strategic medium to promote innovation development. In this paper, the patent citations, more recognized internationally, are taken as a proxy for innovation quality, and digital economy development index is measured by the CRITIC-G1-Bonferroni operator from three aspects, i.e. the digital environment, digital industrialization, and industrial digitalization. Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2011 to 2019, this paper first explores the direct relationship between the digital economy and provincial innovation quality through the fixed effect model and further introduces instrumental variables to solve the endogeneity. At the same time, the mediating effect model and the threshold regression model are adopted to test the indirect and nonlinear effects of the digital economy on innovation quality under the moderation of financing constraints, transaction costs, and foreign direct investment. The results show that the digital economy has a significant positive direct effect on innovation quality, and the effect decreases in the order of the central region, western region, and eastern region. Additionally, the digital economy can indirectly improve the quality of provincial innovation by easing financing constraints and reducing transaction costs, but it has a masking effect on the path of foreign direct investment. Finally, based on provincial heterogeneity, the digital economy has different threshold effects on innovation quality. Under the conditions of loose financing constraints, low regional transaction costs, and moderate foreign direct investment, the digital economy can exert a more favorable positive impact. This paper provides some reference value for the government to formulate regional differential policies and construct a favorable digital environment.
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