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Keywords

digital economy, industry chain resilience, innovation factor allocation, spatial spillover effect

Abstract

The digital economy, as a new model, has changed old economic production relations, giving a fresh push for modern society's economic progress. Similarly, the digital economy has emerged as a crucial driving force in promoting the robustness of the industrial chain. Currently, scholars' study on the relationship between the two is primarily theoretical, with some empirically examining the relationship, and the bulk focuses on manufacturing industry chain resilience research, whereas research on the whole macro perspective needs to be in-depth. As a result, this article uses panel data from 31 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2022 to investigate the influence of the digital economy in determining industrial chain toughness. First of all, the application of digital technology accelerates the establishment of digital supply networks, represented by 5G, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, etc, accelerates the transmission of information, so that enterprises can quickly respond to and anticipate future demand and impulse; on the other hand, the digital economy accelerates the support of technological innovation to the industrial chain. With the flourishing development of the digital industry, China is in a new round of technological change, gradually transitioning from imitation innovation to independent innovation, which promotes the rapid development of technology-intensive industries and provides a solid guarantee for the digital transformation of the industrial chain, implying that the digital economy can significantly improve the industrial chains' resilience. Second, the digital economy can promote the allocation of innovation factors such as talent, capital, and technology by providing more talent for industry chain management, optimizing capital allocation and flow, and providing high-tech support for industry chain development, thereby increasing industry chain resilience. Finally, it can drive the linkage of the industrial chain in surrounding provinces and support the enhancement of the industrial chain's resilience by relying on the "diffusion effect," "linkage effect," and "demonstration effect" of the digital economy. To test the foregoing hypotheses, this paper builds a fixed-effect model, a mediating-effect model, and a spatial-effect model. The empirical results show that the digital economy can promote the enhancement of industry chain toughness, and this conclusion is still valid after the robustness test; through the intermediary mechanism test, it was found that the configuration of innovation factors plays a part of the intermediary effect, and the digital economy can enhance the toughness of the industry chain by improving the level of the configuration of innovation factors; through the spatial lag model, it was found that there is a spatial spillover effect in the impact of the digital economy on the industry chain toughness, i.e., the digital economy can promote the province's industrial chain toughness,but also promote the enhancement of the toughness of the industrial chain in neighboring provinces; through the threshold effect test, it has been discovered that the degree of the digital economy has a single-threshold influence on the toughness of the industrial chain; however, a single digital economy cannot maintain the toughness of the industrial chain for an extended period of time and must be refined in several areas；through the heterogeneity analysis found that the samples with high digital economy levels have a stronger contribution to the enhancement of industry chain resilience,and the enhancement of industry chain resilience by digital economy is more significant in the southern region than in the northern region due to the higher economic level.Based on the results of empirical research, this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations: firstly, China should vigorously promote the development of the digital economy to help enhance the resilience of the industrial chain. Secondly, improve the level of innovation factor allocation to support the enhancement of industry chain resilience. Thirdly, strengthen the regional synergistic development, and better exert the spillover effect of the digital economy. Fourthly, tailor the development mode of digital economy in different regions. Fifthly, diversify development to further enhance the level of industry chain resilience.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2024.05.009

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