Influence And Path Analysis Of Digitalization On Economic Growth In Yangtze River Economic Belt

In the context of digital transformation and innovation-driven development,this paper aims to measure the role of digitalization in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in promoting high-quality economic development by improving innovation efficiency.On the one hand,the digitalization plays a direct role in economic development;on the other hand,the digitalization level promotes economic development by improving innovation efficiency,taken as the innovation path driven growth.Meanwhile,as the highland of digital transformation and innovative development in China,the Yangtze River Economic Belt is taken as the major national strategic regions,which is in a leading position in the whole country.The research on the role of digitalization on economic growth through the innovation path can provide significant reference for the development in other Chinese regions.Based on the 110 prefecture-level cities in Yangtze River Economic Belt during2015-2019,this paper firstly applied entropy method and the super efficiency SBM model method to measure the digitalization and innovation efficiency.Secondly,this paper employed spatial Durbin model to explore the impact of digitalization on economic growth and its spatial spillover effect,and further innovatively established the two-regime spatial Durbin model to identify the differentiated spatial spillover effect of digitalization on economic growth in the upper,middle and lower Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations.Finally,the paper introduced the innovation efficiency as the mediating path and employed the mediating effect model to study the conduction mechanism of digitalization on economic growth through innovation efficiency path in each urban agglomeration.The findings are listed as follows:(1)Taken the perspective of time dimension,the digitalization of provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt showed a rising trend during 2015-2019.In the spatial dimension,the digitalization of provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is generally higher in the east and lower in the west.From the perspective of urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,middle and lower reaches,urban agglomeration in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has formed a development pattern with Chengdu-Chongqing as the core to promote digital transformation.The urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has formed a development pattern in which all provinces advance in step.Urban agglomerations in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt have formed a development pattern of "a hundred flowers blooming" with Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Shanghai as the core.(2)The innovation efficiency of urban clusters in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is in a leading position within the Yangtze River Economic Belt.With "Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Shanghai" as the core,the downstream urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows a high concentration of innovation efficiency due to its unique geographical location,talent advantage and policy preference.The technological conditions and human resources of urban agglomerations in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are relatively backward and are siphoned.(3)The level of digitalization will promote the overall economic development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.Urban agglomerations in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are "strong and demonstrative" cities and play a demonstrative role in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.Innovation efficiency plays a partial mediating role in the downstream urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Economic Belt,while it does not play a mediating role in the middle and upstream urban agglomeration.The main contributions of this study are listed as follows: Firstly,the paper innovatively employs the two-regime spatial econometric model to paper analyze the role and difference of the digitalization and regional innovation efficiency on the spatial effect of economic growth in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,which provides more significant reference for strengthening spatial cooperation and spillover effect among other regions.Secondly,the paper innovatively introduces innovation efficiency as a mediating path and analyzes the mediating effect of innovation efficiency under the influence of digitalization level on economic growth with mediating effect model,which can provide ideas for the Yangtze River Economic Belt and other regions to promote economic growth with innovation efficiency.