A study on the impact of global digital economy development on China’s export trade

The rapid development of the global Digital Economy (DE) is profoundly affecting international trade and has emerged as a crucial engine sustaining the steady expansion of China’s export trade (CE). Drawing on panel data covering 146 countries from 2003 to 2023, this study investigates in depth how the development of the global DE influences CE by integrating the level of DE development into an extended gravity model framework, and further examines the threshold effect arising from the DE gap between importing countries and China in this process. The study finds that the development of the global DE has significantly increased CE. The results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that this promoting effect is heterogeneous across countries with different levels of economic development and internet regulation, as well as across different industries. Mechanism analysis shows that this impact is mainly achieved through two channels: reducing trade costs and increasing production capacity. Finally, the empirical results reveal that when the DE gap between China and importing countries is introduced as a threshold variable, the influence of DE development in the importing country on China’s exports exhibits a single-threshold effect. Once the DE gap surpasses this critical point, the positive effect diminishes.