Does Industrial IT Adoption Affect Export Sophistication? Evidence from China’s Pilot Zones Policy for Industrial Information Integration

Shuzhou Peng and Huili Deng

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2025, vol. 61, issue 12, 3841-3857

Abstract: Regarding China’s Pilot Zones Policy for Industrial Information Integration as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizing city-level data from 2003 to 2016, this study exogenously examines the impact of industrial information technology adoption on city export sophistication. By employing a difference-in-differences estimation, the findings reveal that the adoption of industrial IT significantly enhances city export sophistication. Mechanism analysis demonstrates that technological innovation and industrial structural upgrading are key drivers of city export sophistication. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of industrial IT adoption on export sophistication is more pronounced in processing trade, resource-based, and small-scale cities. These findings offer valuable insights into how other developing countries leverage the industrial IT revolution to enhance trade quality and economic development.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1540496X.2025.2489742 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:mes:emfitr:v:61:y:2025:i:12:p:3841-3857

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MREE20

DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2025.2489742

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Emerging Markets Finance and Trade from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().