How Does the Digital Economy Drive the Optimization and Upgrading of Industrial Structure? The Mediating Effect of Innovation and the Role of Economic Resilience

Yicheng Song and Yuantao Jiang ()
Additional contact information
Yicheng Song: School of Economic and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Yuantao Jiang: School of Economic and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: The digital economy (DE) has become a major driving force behind the optimization and upgrading of industrial structures (ISOU), but research on its driving mechanisms has yet to be verified. To this end, the driving influence of the DE on ISOU is targeted and the role played by economic resilience (ER) and innovation is explored. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, the driving influence of the DE on ISOU is analyzed using a two-way fixed-effects model. This empirical study finds that the DE has a positive driving effect on both industrial structure advancement and rationalization and that the driving effect is still significant after the addition of control variables and the robust-type test with one period of lag. The DE presents regional differences in ISOU, with the driving effect of the DE on the industrial structure advancement in the eastern region having a more significant performance than that in the central and western regions and the driving influence on the rationalization of the industrial structure in the eastern and western regions exceeds that in the central region. The impact of the DE on ISOU has a mediating role through innovation. ER has a moderating role in the process and innovation, as a partial mediator, also has a threshold effect. Finally, based on the research and discussion, conclusions and countermeasure recommendations are presented.

Keywords: digital economy; industrial structure; optimization and upgrading; economic resilience; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1352/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1352/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:4:p:1352-:d:1333977

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().