Can Digitalization Improve the High-quality Development of Manufacturing? An Analysis Based on Chinese Provincial Panel Data

Digitalization plays a pivotal role in enhancing manufacturing quality development and upgradation, helping translate transformation goals. The available literature has explored the impact of high-quality development in manufacturing, but the impact of digitalization and the underlying mechanism still needs to be systematically studied. This study aims to verify the impact of digitalization on the high-quality development of manufacturing employing dynamic panel data and a quantile regression model on China’s provincial panel data between 2011 and 2020. The results indicated that high-quality manufacturing development showed a fluctuating rising trend with insignificant regional differences, with no apparent trend with a significant difference in the eastern region compared to the central and western regions. The nonlinear effect analysis results revealed that digitalization significantly promoted high-quality development in manufacturing with a more prominent effect at 50% quantile. Digitalization showed significant and heterogenous results in eastern region data compared to other regions, cementing the importance of digitalization in high-quality manufacturing development. This research also empirically enriches the discussion on the relationship between digitalization and the high-quality manufacturing development of industries providing meaningful insight into policy implications for improving the high-quality level of the manufacturing industry and achieving sustainable economic development.