Research On The Effect Of Digital Economy On High-quality Development Of China’s Retail Industry

As a new engine of economic growth,the digital economy is booming and integrating with the real economy to promote high-quality development of the real economy.The retail industry,as a connection link between the supply side and the consumer,takes on the "last mile" of moving goods from production to consumers,playing an important role in the real economy.Under the new development pattern of double cycle,the retail industry seizes the opportunities of the digital economy,undergoing digital transformation with the help of digital technology and change to "new retail" development model in order to achieve high-quality development of the retail industry more quickly.When the retail sector has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic downturn,it is necessary to discuss whether the digital economy enables the digital transformation of retail industry,effectively promote high-quality development of the retail industry and help the retail sector out of trouble which has certain significance for promoting the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones and realize both domestic and foreign circulation in China.This paper firstly reviews the domestic and foreign researches on digital economy,high-quality development of the retail industry,the relationship between digital economy and high-quality development of the retail industry and discusses and analyzes the internal mechanism of the influence of digital economy on high-quality development of the retail industry from the theoretical level.Secondly,descriptive statistical analysis is made on the development status of China’s digital economy and retail industry.And this paper constructs an evaluation index system covering digital infrastructure,digital business scale,digital application degree and digital technology innovation based on the connotation of digital economy to analyze the status quo of digital economy and divide the high-quality development of the retail industry into three dimensions,and select representative index for measurement and analysis according to the connotation of high-quality development and the characteristics of the retail industry.Then,based on data availability,panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2013 to 2020 are selected to establish fixed effect model and spatial Dubin model in order to analyze the overall effect,spatial spillover effect.Finally,the effect of digital economy on retail industry’s high-quality development is studied in different dimensions and regions.And the threshold regression model is constructed to examine the threshold effect of digital economy on the high-quality development of retail industry and finally put forward targeted countermeasures and suggestions.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Theoretically,digital economy promotes high-quality development of the retail industry by affecting the expansion model,sales channel,marketing model,supply system and ability to absorb employment of the retail industry.Digital economy can have a spatial spillover effect on the high-quality development of the retail industry,and there may be a non-linear relationship between the two.(2)At present,China’s digital economy maintains high growth;digital infrastructure construction is making steady progress;The digital industry provides solid technical support;industry digitization has become an important engine of digital economy.The retail industry as a whole is on the rise;major types of physical retail grew steadily;online retail has become the dominant force.(3)The digital economy has a significant direct effect and spatial spillover effect on the high-quality development of China’s retail industry,and the conclusions has passed the robustness test.(4)From the perspective of different dimensions,digital economy has no spatial spillover effect on the overall scale of retail industry,and there is a significant spatial spillover effect on the optimization of the retail industry structure and the social benefits of the retail industry.(5)In regional dimensions,there is no positive spatial spillover effect of digital economy on the overall retail scale in the three regions.Digital economy has a significant positive spillover effect on retail structure optimization in the eastern and central regions.In the three regions,digital economy has obvious positive spatial spillover to the social benefits of retail industry.(6)The promotion effect of digital economy on retail structure optimization and social benefits of retail industry is not only affected by its own level,but also by the adjustment effect produced by consumption upgrading.