The Digital Economy and New Quality Productive Forces: A Literature Review

Whether the digital economy can foster the development of new quality productive forces depends not only on investment in digital technologies and infrastructure, but also on whether data and technology can be combined with conventional factors of production to create effective productive capacity. This article reviews the conceptual foundations and measurement approaches of the digital economy and new quality productive forces. It then synthesizes the literature on the overall effects of the digital economy, differences across levels of analysis, nonlinearities, and spatial spillovers, before examining the principal transmission mechanisms. The literature generally supports a positive relationship. The digital economy and new quality productive forces share close links in their technological foundations and factor composition. The central mechanism is the use of data to translate scientific and technological advances into productive capacity, supported by the recombination of production factors and the upgrading of industrial structure. The pace of this conversion, however, depends heavily on regional human-capital endowments and the ability to absorb frontier technologies. Digital infrastructure and an enabling legal and institutional environment are equally important. Future research should sharpen the conceptual boundaries of both constructs, improve the consistency and accuracy of measurement, examine linked mechanisms and cross-level transmission, and give greater attention to possible adverse effects. The use of multidimensional micro-level data would also strengthen causal identification.