The Digital Economy and Total Factor Productivity of the Manufacturing Industry: From the Perspective of Subdivided Manufacturing Sectors

Xinxin Chen () and Jun Shao ()
Additional contact information
Xinxin Chen: School of Economics & Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
Jun Shao: School of Economics & Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-27

Abstract: Global economic change and technological development have made the digital economy a key force for economic growth. With its innovation, penetration, and integration, the digital economy has penetrated into all aspects of the manufacturing industry, bringing opportunities and challenges to the manufacturing industry. Based on the development level of China’s digital economy and manufacturing industry data from 2001 to 2023, using DEA–BCC–Malmquist, this paper studies the impact of the digital economy on the total factor productivity of the manufacturing industry. It is found that the development of the digital economy impacted the total factor productivity of the manufacturing industry, in which cost and innovation research and development played an intermediary effect, and the digital economy has shown a more positive push in technology-intensive and labor-intensive industries than in capital-intensive ones. Based on the findings, this research is designed to empower the manufacturing sector to capitalize on emerging digital economy opportunities while advancing sustainable development goals.

Keywords: digital economy; manufacturing; total factor productivity; costs and expenses; innovative R&D (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3127/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3127/ (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:17:y:2025:i:7:p:3127-:d:1626009

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 ().