The effect of the digital economy on services exports competitiveness and ternary margins

In the era of the digital economy, improving the level of information and communications technology (ICT) development is an important measure for achieving the high-quality development of the services exports. This study constructs a comprehensive development index for the digital economy based on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Statistics Database (UCTADstat) to calculate the services exports competitiveness of 75 countries (regions) around the world from 2010 to 2019 and conducts ternary margin decomposition. The study empirically verifies that the digital economy promotes the competitiveness of services exports, not only driving intensive growth of quantity margin and price margin but also enhances the expansion growth of category margin. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of the digital economy on improving low- and middle-income countries' services exports competitiveness and industries with low ICT intensity is more significant than that of high-income countries and high ICT-intensity industries. The impact of the digital economy on the ternary margin of countries’ different income levels and ICT-intensity sample groups exhibits differentiated estimation results. The conclusions of this study provide novel explanations regarding the effects of the digital economy in improving services exports competitiveness and new perspectives and evidence for strategic policymaking.