Investigating The Impact Of Digital Economy On The Competitiveness Of Agricultural Product Exports

Agricultural development bears on the national economy,people’s livelihood and national strategic security.The import and export trade of agricultural products is an important part of international trade,which is a sign reflecting the international division of agricultural productivity.Nowadays,the geographical direction of international trade of agricultural products has changed significantly.Backward countries were the main exporters of agricultural products in the past,but developed countries have become the main importers and exporters of agricultural products at present.At the same time,the comparative advantage of agricultural production has changed significantly.The comparative advantage of agricultural trade in the early days was reflected in the advantage of labor resources,land resources,etc.Now the technological advantage is increasingly becoming the dominant factor.Digital economy has the characteristics of strong penetration,wide coverage and far-reaching influence.Its rapid development will also have a profound impact on China’s agricultural production and trade.During the 13 th FiveYear Plan period,China has implemented the digital economy development strategy,constantly improved digital infrastructure,accelerated the cultivation of new forms and models,and achieved positive results in promoting digital industrialization and industrial digitization.At present,how to tap the potential of digital economy in agricultural production and agricultural trade so as to enhance the competitiveness of China’s agricultural exports is an urgent problem to be solved.This study focuses on the impact of digital economy on the competitiveness of China’s agricultural exports.This study firstly analyzes the development level of digital economy in an empirical way,and selects 1240 data from 31 provinces and cities from2013 to 2020 to construct the system through five secondary indexes including Internet penetration rate,number of Internet-related employees,Internet-related output,number of mobile Internet users,and development of digital financial inclusion by entropy method.Calculate the digital economy index of entropy method.Secondly,the ECI index system of agricultural export competitiveness is constructed.Finally,the benchmark regression is carried out to verify the overall impact of digital economy on agricultural export competitiveness.Then,the robustness test is carried out by lagging one stage and replacement variables.The calculation results show that: without control variables,the coefficient of the development level of digital economy is significantly positive.Specifically,when the development level of digital economy changes 1%,the export competitiveness of agricultural products will change 0.358% in the same direction.With the addition of control variables: economic development level(GDPP),land resources(LR),gold content of GDP(DI),agricultural and rural production and operation(RP)are still significantly positive,and the coefficient is significantly higher than that without the addition of control variables,which indicates that digital economy has a more obvious role in improving the export competitiveness of agricultural products after the addition of control variables.According to the results of heterogeneity test,the regression coefficients of the eastern region(1.042)and the central region(1.027)were much higher than those of the western region(0.522),indicating that the development level of digital economy in the eastern region and the central region had a much greater promoting effect on the export competitiveness of agricultural products than that in the western region.In order to enhance the accuracy of robustness test results,the index system of the development level of digital economy is replaced in this paper,and the test conclusion is the same as above.Based on the above empirical analysis,this study also puts forward corresponding policy suggestions: accelerate the development of digital agriculture industry,balance the coordinated development of regional digital economy,improve the efficiency of land resource use,improve rural per capita disposable income,improve rural production and management level.