Research On The Influence Of Digital Economy Level Of RCEP Member Countries On China’s Bilateral Service Trade Cost

With the in-depth development of service globalization promoted by the digital economy,service trade has become an important force for reshaping the international economic and trade pattern and promoting high-quality economic development.However,the development of service trade still faces severe challenges,the WTO pointed out that the cost of service trade is twice the cost of goods trade,and trade cost is precisely the key factor affecting the scale of a country’s trade,especially for the RCEP region with great potential for the development of service trade,the reduction of bilateral service trade costs will vigorously promote the development of bilateral service trade between China and other RCEP members.Considering the high efficiency of the digital economy and its strong penetration into service trade,this thesis believes that we should grasp the opportunities of the digital economy and study the impact of the development level of digital economy of RCEP member countries on the cost of China’s bilateral service trade,so as to bring new opportunities for the development of service trade in China and RCEP region.The research content of this thesis is mainly divided into four parts: first,based on the transaction cost theory,the impact of digital economy on bilateral service trade costs is discussed from the dual perspectives of supply side and demand side.Secondly,following the "five-stage" and "six-principle" models of designing a comprehensive evaluation index system,after multiple screening and testing,a comprehensive evaluation index system for the development of digital economy covering 3 first-level indicators,6 second-level indicators and17 third-level indicators,including digital input,digital development environment and digital output,was constructed,and the entropy method was applied to measure the development level of digital economy development in RCEP member countries from 2010 to 2019.Industrial policies and national strategies were compared and analyzed from the aspects of comprehensive scores and sub-index scores.Thirdly,from the perspectives of development environment,scale and structure,the current situation of bilateral service trade between China and other RCEP members from 2010 to 2019 was analyzed,and the indirect measurement method was used to measure the bilateral service trade costs between China and other members in the past 10 years,and the systematic clustering method was used to classify them.Finally,on the basis of quantifying the development level of digital economy and bilateral service trade costs,an econometric model is constructed to explore the direction and impact of the digital economy development level of RCEP member countries on China’s bilateral service trade costs from an empirical perspective.Based on the above research content,this thesis concludes the following: First,the overall digital economy development level of RCEP member countries shows a stable improvement trend,but there is an imbalance in the development of digital economy among countries,among which developed countries and high-income countries have obvious leading advantages in digital economy.Second,the total cost of bilateral service trade between China and other RCEP members shows a downward trend year by year,and it is found through systematic clustering that the bilateral service trade costs between China and other RCEP members can be divided into four categories,of which South Korea,Japan and Singapore are low trade cost countries,Australia,Thailand,Malaysia,Vietnam and Indonesia are low trade cost countries,the Philippines and New Zealand are high trade cost countries,and Cambodia is a high trade cost country.Third,the empirical results confirm the research hypothesis proposed above,that is,improving the development level of digital economy in RCEP member countries will reduce the cost of China’s bilateral service trade.In addition,through heterogeneity analysis,it is found that for developing countries,improving the development level of digital economy can reduce the cost of bilateral service trade to a greater extent.Based on the above research,this thesis puts forward suggestions to accelerate the construction of new digital infrastructure,cultivate the domestic digital innovation environment,ensure the domestic digital governance environment,and accelerate the digital transformation and upgrading of services.