Study On The Impact Of Digital Transformation On Total Factor Productivity Of Firms

With the vigorous development of digital economy,more and more attention has been paid to the digital transformation of firms.Speeding up the digital development of firms is not only the way to achieve high-quality development of firms,but also an important part of promoting industrial upgrading and achieving high-quality economic and social development.This paper focuses on the relationship between digital transformation and total factor productivity of firm.Based on the data of A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2020,this paper sorts out the keywords related to digital transformation in the enterprise annual report,and constructs the digital transformation index from two aspects of digital basic technology and digital technology application,which respectively reflects the change of digital management within firms and digital technology commercial application.Then this paper empirically examines the general impact,impact mechanism and heterogeneity analysis of digital basic technology and digital technology application on total factor productivity of firms.The results show that: first,digital basic technology and digital technology application significantly improve the total factor productivity of firms,and the conclusion is still valid after the robustness test and endogenous test.Second,digital transformation can improve total factor productivity of firms through three mechanisms: cost reduction,management capability improvement and innovation drive,and digital basic technology and digital technology application have different paths: digital basic technology embodies the technological attribute of digital technology,focusing on improving total factor productivity of firms through cost reduction and innovation drive;digital technology application embodies the commercial application attribute of digital technology,focusing on improving the total factor productivity of firms through cost reduction and business capacity improvement.Third,the results of heterogeneity analysis show that:with the expansion of firm scale,the impact of digital transformation on total factor productivity of firms shows the nonlinear characteristic of increasing "marginal effect".In addition,under the conditions of heterogeneity such as factor intensity,firm life cycle,industry and external environment,the impact of digital basic technology on total factor productivity of firms is significantly different.on the other hand,there is no significant difference in the impact of digital technology application.This paper reveals the impact of the change of digital management within firms and digital technology commercial application on the high-quality development of firms,which brings useful strategic references and countermeasures for digital transformation firms,and provides some empirical evidence and new suggestions for policy-making.