Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1956362
Import technology sophistication and high-quality economic development: evidence from city-level data of China
Ming Chen
Hongbo Wang
Abstract
This paper adopts five dimensions and 15 indexes of green development, people’s life, innovation ability, economic vitality and
coordinated development to establish an evaluation system of
high-quality economic development. It uses principal component
analysis to measure the economic high-quality development of
233 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2016, and empirically
studies the impact of import sophistication on China’s high-quality economic development. The results show that the increase in
the sophistication of imported technology can significantly promote the high-quality development of the regional economy, and
this effect is applicable to both imported intermediate and final
products. In regions with higher and lower levels of economic
development, eastern areas, and regions with high-quality development above 90% quantiles, the increase in imported technology content can significantly drive the high-quality development
of the local economy. However, it has a great negative impact on
the areas with a high-quality development index below 10%
quantile. The robustness and endogeneity check support the
above viewpoint. Further mechanism analysis shows that the final
product import competition and intermediate product import
spillover play a mediating role in the process of import sophistication affecting the high-quality economic development. The conclusion of this paper has important theoretical value and practical
significance for the use of import trade to achieve high-quality
economic development.
Keywords
Import sophistication; high-quality development; evaluation index system; import competition; import spillover effect
Hrčak ID:
302036
URI
Publication date:
31.3.2023.
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