Estimating The Scale Of China's Digital Economy Based On ICT Industry Research

The concept of Digital Economy was born at the end of the twentieth century,and has attracted much attention in the context of today's Big Data Era.Although it has experienced only three decades,both the officially released data and the changes that people feels in everyday life are emphasizing the increasingly important position of The Digital Economy.How to measure the scale of Digital Economy and compare the general situation of the development of Digital Economy in different countries and regions has become an indispensable topic in the study of Digital Economy.The academic discussion on the scale of Digital Economy is still in the exploratory stage.The research methods of different parties are different.There is no generally accepted system for measuring the scale of Digital Economy.Starting from the connotation of Digital Technology and Digital Economy,this paper uses input-output data to analyze the industrial correlation of ICT industry,calculating the added value of the Digital Basic Industry and the added value of the Digital Integration part.From this,the scale of China's Digital Economy from 2000 to 2015 is summarized.In addition,the contribution of different types of capital investment growth to the national economy is studied under the growth accounting model,and the second method to estimate the total scale of Digital Economy in different periods is using the contribution of digital related capital investment growth.From the absolute scale,the scale of China's digital economy has been showing a steady upward trend,reaching the level of 8 trillion RMB in 2015,and from its relative proportion to GDP to examine the development process of digital economy,the growth trend of Digital Economy has changed around 2009.Both input-output measurement and growth accounting measurement show that this is a low valley of Digital Economic Development.During this period,the share of GDP fell to about 9%.By analyzing the development of related industries and the investment of Digital Capital in China around this period,it is of not difficult to find that ICT manufacturing industry has been the driving force to support the development of Digital Economic before 2008 and 09,and ICT hardware capital investment in other industries has also shown an obvious upward trend.After entering 2010,software and communication services have become the mainstream,and their contribution to the national economy has gradually approached the ICT manufacturing industry.Comparing the growth of consumption of software and service products with the decline in hardware investment,we can perceive the new features of digital economy in this period.1.The supply of hardware products are gradually concentrated in the hands of a few leading enterprises.2.The industry's enthusiasm for hardware facilities has begun to shift to a wide range of software and communication services products.3.Innovative enterprises design diversified products and services from the demand,which makes ICT service industry gradually become an important support for the development of Digital Economy,and the Digital Economy bursts out with new vitality.The result of input-output calculation shows that the proportion of China's Digital Economy scale to GDP reached a historical high of about 12% in 2015.By studying the changes and characteristics of Digital Economy scale in different periods,combining with the current development trend of Digital Technology and the current situation of digital related industries in China,this paper argues that some existing measurement of Digital Economy scale in China tends to overestimate the scale of Digital Economy,lacking a summary of the past development process,so it is easy to ignore some important information,such as the change of capital investment of ICT hardware and software around 2009 and what follow-up effects have been brought about.In view of the fact that Digital Economy itself is a concept with rich connotations,its measurement data acquisition,measurement indicators and research methods should also be improved accordingly.