Bo Huang, Haitong Li, Junqi Liu, Jinghua Lei
Abstract In the current digital economy era, digital technology innovation has become a core factor driving China’s economic development. This paper takes listed companies in China as research samples, identifies companies’ digital patents through text analysis to characterize the level of digital technology innovation, and examines the economic consequences of digital technology innovation from the perspective of total factor productivity. The study finds that digital technology innovation significantly enhances the improvement of total factor productivity and empowers high-quality development of Chinese enterprises. The conclusion remains valid after controlling for endogeneity and conducting robustness tests. Regarding the mechanism, digital technology innovation exerts functions of management empowerment, investment empowerment, operational empowerment, and labor empowerment, helping enterprises reduce internal control costs, improve the quality of investment decisions and asset operation efficiency, and optimize labor resource structure, thereby promoting the growth of total factor productivity. Further analysis reveals that a sound intellectual property protection system and digital infrastructure will amplify the positive impact of digital technology innovation on productivity; meanwhile, for high-tech enterprises and labor-intensive enterprises, the productivity effects of digital technology innovation are more pronounced. This study validates the empowering role of digital technology innovation in high-quality development of the real economy, providing insights for policy support of digital technology innovation and strategic decision-making in enterprise digitalization.