What is the impact of the digital economy on the cost of bilateral trade?Experts are here to answer

At present, with the progress of science and technology, the rapid development of the digital economy has become one of the important driving forces for the rapid and healthy development of China's economy.

At the same time, China's innovation and development momentum is strong, and the structure continues to be optimized. However, due to the fact that there are many factors that affect the efficiency of the world, such as friction between the countries and unpredictable risks, with the development of the economy, the losses caused by the above factors will be more obvious.

The development of the digital economy can effectively reduce the cost of communication, improve the speed of information dissemination, reduce the information asymmetry, reduce uncertainty, reduce the risk, reduce the friction, and promote the reduction of the cost.

Therefore, by constructing an index system to measure the level of digital economy development, China and 65 countries are measured and compared (**Partner countries are composed of OECD countries, countries along the "Belt and Road" and some countries in South America, which can basically reflect China's external situation, limited by space, see the appendix for specific countries).

The level of development of the digital economy from 2010 to 2017At the same time, it is examined whether the development of the digital economy can effectively reduce the cost, which will not only have an important impact on the decision-making of enterprises, and will directly affect the exchanges and cooperation between China and its partners in economic and trade fields. Based on the above situation, this paper argues that the impact of the development of the digital economy on the international cost is worth studying.

The connotation of the digital economy and the measurement method

Since the 90s of the last century, the rapid development of digital technology and communication technology represented by the Internet, and the expansion of the use of digital technology have greatly changed the operation mode of the economy, the production mode of manufacturers and the way consumers communicate with each other.

There is no doubt that the importance of digital technology in business and the role of promoting the economy cannot be overlooked. Don Tepscott first proposed the concept of digital economy in the 90s of the 20th century, but there is no unified definition of digital economy in the academic community. As for the understanding of the connotation of the digital economy, there is currently no accurate and generally accepted definition of what economic activities should be included in the digital economy

A 2018 report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) pointed out that the reason why the definition of the digital economy is different is that the development of digital technology is very fast, and enterprises and consumers use different technologies to communicate at different times, which leads to the content of the digital economy will change over time. So, ideally, the scope of the digital economy should change over time.

After the above discussion,At present, the academic community has different understandings of the digital economy, and there are different understandings of its connotation among themBut in general, the understanding of the digital economy is mainly divided into broad and narrow senses. The digital economy is broadly understood as an economic activity. At present, the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation), BEA, G20 and the China Academy of Communications, as well as scholars at home and abroad, hold this view.

The OECD considers the concept of the digital economy to be very broad and encompasses all current economic, social and cultural activities supported by the Internet, including all the uses and benefits of digital technologies;BEA defines the digital economy from the aspects of the Internet and information and communication technology, including the following three aspects:

Digital infrastructure, whose role is to keep the Internet alive and running。2. A system for digital transactions in e-commerce. 3. Digital**, that is, the content created and accessed by users of the digital economy on the network;In its 2020 report "China's Digital Economy Development *** 2020", the China Academy of Communications defined the digital economy as:

The core production factor of the digital economy is the knowledge and information related to digitalization, the key driving force is digital technology, and the main carrier is the information network, which is a new economic form that improves the level of digitalization through the integration of the real economy and digital technology, and then promotes the transformation of economic development mode and social governance mode. ”。

The development of the digital economy is measured from three perspectives: infrastructure construction, innovation and R&D environment, and transaction development momentum. The digital economy is narrowly understood as a type of industry, that is, the digital economy only includes the production of digital products and servicesand to separate it from the traditional sectors of national economic activities and develop it into an independent core industry - the digital industry, which currently measures the development of China's digital economy from this perspective.

It can be seen that most scholars and institutions understand the digital economy from a broad perspective, and the understanding of the digital economy from a broad perspective will be more comprehensive and extensive. Based on the above analysis, this paper argues that the digital economy includes a variety of economic activities, in other words, the digital economy is supported by the construction of digital infrastructure and environmental institutions, and the digitalization of various economic entities is the core.

Economic activities that improve production and operational efficiency through the use and development of digital technologies to optimize resource allocation。At present, different organizations and scholars have different methods for measuring the scale of the digital economy. However, in general, the measurement of the digital economy mainly includes the direct estimation method and the establishment of an evaluation index system.

Since the 90s of the last century, the rapid development of digital and communication technology has promoted the emergence of the digital economy, greatly improved the efficiency of economic operation and promoted economic growth. Scholars and organizations at home and abroad have begun to study the measurement of the digital economy. In its 2018 report, Defining and Measuring the Digital Economy, BEA describes the methodology for measuring the digital economy.

First, BEA defines the digital economy in terms of the use of the Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) based on the availability of digital economy data, and considers the ICT sector as the starting point for defining the digital economy. Secondly,In order to define the economic activities related to the digital economy, the supply and use table will be used, and finally the industry activities that are counted and summarized will be summed up to measure the added value of the digital economy

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (2019) has calculated the added value of the digital economy, and explained the method of measurement in its report "China's Digital Economy Development", first of all, to build an analytical framework for measuring the digital economy, decompose the digital economy into two parts, and then measure them separately.

The measurement method of industrial digitalization is to separate the contribution of the digital economy in the output of different traditional industries and then add it upIn order to obtain the total amount of digital economy in traditional industries, and then calculate the added value of digital economy. It is believed that the similarity between the measurement methods of CAICT and BEA is that both are based on the perspective of producers and take the ICT industry as the core, but the difference is that the assumption of CAICT is that technological progress is Hicks neutral.

This assumption deviates greatly from reality, while BEA assumes that the proportion of intermediate goods invested in the production of digital products is the same as that of intermediate goods in the industry in which the product is located. The second is the evaluation index system method, which measures the development of the digital economy by establishing an index system that evaluates the development of the digital economy from different dimensions.

Compared to direct measures,The construction of an indicator system can intuitively reflect the development of a region's digital economy over a period of time, and can be compared internationally。At present, there is sufficient research on this by institutions and scholars at home and abroad.

For example, the World Economic Forum's annual NetworkReadinessIndex measures the development of countries' digital economy from four dimensions: the development environment of the digital economy, the readiness of the digital economy, its use and impact. Domestic scholars also use this method to measure the development of digital technology, construct an index system to measure the development of the digital economy, and analyze the improvement of export efficiency by the development of the digital economy

This paper constructs the evaluation index system of digital economy in each province of China from three dimensions to analyze the driving factors of digital economy；From the perspectives of digital infrastructure construction, institutional guarantee and environmental innovation, and export-oriented competitiveness, this paper constructs an index to evaluate the development level of digital economy and analyzes the relationship between digital economy and FDI.

**Cost-related research

Cost is one of the important factors affecting the international market, and cost refers to the cost that consumers and enterprises must pay in order to reach a transaction with consumers in addition to the production costs that enterprises must pay when producing products. Specifically, the cost includes the transportation cost due to the distance, the information cost when obtaining relevant information in order to conclude the transaction, the language barrier that the enterprise overcomes when engaging in cross-border affairs, and the cost paid to make the contract effective and executed.

At present, there are many ways for scholars to calculate the cost. But in general, it can be divided into two methods: direct measurement and indirect measurement. The direct measure of cost is to obtain costs through data that can be directly measured, such as transportation costs, tariffs, etc.

However, the scope of the ** cost measured by the direct measurement method is somewhat narrow, and the ** cost of a specific category can only be determined, and the overall ** cost cannot be estimated. As a result, the academic community is more likely to use indirect measures to measure costs.

The indirect measurement method is generally based on the flow method, and compared with the direct method measurement, the indirect method covers all components of the cost when measuring the costIn addition to shipping costs and customs duties, there are other hard-to-measure components, such as language barriers to overcome, the cost of searching for information, and the cost of doing business through **

When using the indirect method to measure the cost, the cost is measured indirectly using the flow generated after completion. In the beginning, the gravitational model is generally used to measure the cost, because when the gravitational model is used to measure the cost, the geographical distance of the two parties is used as the explanatory variable to measure the cost, which will lead to the neglect of non-tariff barriers and other components of the cost when calculating the cost, which will bias the calculated results.

Based on the above discussion, China and 65 ** partner countries are measured from the national level and industry levelCosts from 2010 to 2017, and analyze the impact of the development of the digital economy on costs。The cost between the two countries is affected by a number of factors.

At present, some scholars have studied this, and at the national level, the distance between the two countries, the difference in economic level, the degree of openness of the country to the outside world, whether it is a neighboring country, and whether it has signed a free ** agreement will have an impact on the cost.

A study of data from 2005 to 2011 for 63 economies shows that assistance to partner countries in terms of infrastructure development can significantly reduce the export and import costs of partner countriesMoreover, the effect of aid to low- and middle-income countries is higher than that of high-income countries.

The improvement of complementarity between the two countries will significantly reduce the cost effect of imports and expand the scale of China's imports. Facility connectivity can effectively reduce the cost of the company and boost the export of listed companies. From the industry level, the system between the two countries will significantly affect the cost of bilateral products, through the study of aquatic products between China and South Korea in 2000 and 2015, it is found that non-tariff barriers, especially technical barriers, will increase the cost of aquatic products in the two countries.

The improvement of infrastructure represented by high-speed rail will reduce the cost of enterprise exports, especially for capital- and technology-intensive industries。Based on the above analysis, it can be found that in recent years, most scholars have studied the digital economy and the cost separately. Most of the research on the digital economy is based on the qualitative description of connotative characteristics, as well as the quantitative measurement of the development of the digital economy in different countries and regions.

Due to the rapid iteration of digital technologies on which the digital economy is based, as well as its own integration with other industries, it is difficult for all parties to measure the digital economy。Therefore, there are currently two methods for measuring the digital economy in the academic circles: one is direct measurement, which directly measures the added value of the digital economy through a variety of methods. Another way is to measure the digital economy by establishing a system of indicators.

This paper establishes an index system to evaluate the development of the digital economy, according to the connotation of the digital economyFrom the five dimensions of the digital economy, the development foundation and development environment of the digital economy；R&D and use of digital technology by enterprises and the world;Export-oriented competitiveness in the digital economy;Internet usage;The operation of the mobile Internet describes the development of the digital economy in various countries, and on this basis, constructs an index system to measure the development of the digital economy.

In this way, the establishment of an index system to measure the development of the digital economy in various countries can fit the connotation of the digital economy summarized above: the digital economy promotes the research and development of digital technology for enterprises and enterprises, and applies digital technology in production, economic activities such as economic activities, integrates multiple resources through various technologies, optimizes the economic structure by improving the efficiency of information communication, improves the communication efficiency of the economy, and reduces economic costs.