Digital economy, technical change and total factor productivity: Empirical evidence from high-tech industry in China

This study uses the Hicks-Moorsteen index method to examine the impact mechanism of the digital economy on the total factor productivity and its decomposition efficiencies of the high-tech industry in China. The results show that the total factor productivity of the high-tech industry in the research and development phase is significantly and positively influenced by the primary phase of digital economy development. Digital economy development has a positive impact on technical change, according to the specific path analysis, which has an inverted U-shaped nonlinear characteristic. With a U-shaped nonlinear characteristic, it has a significant and persistent negative impact on efficiency changes, where the positive impact of technological spillovers on the digital economy outweighs the negative impact of technological shocks. The threshold effect test shows that the best condition for promoting total factor productivity and its decomposition efficiency in the R&D stage of high-tech industry was achieved when the digital economy composite index was between 2.611 and 2.747.