The 357th Wenlan Financial Forum

Abstract：

Digital infrastructure construction, particularly the popularization of broadband networks, has emerged as a core driver for promoting industrial upgrading and achieving high-quality development in China's digital economy era. To accelerate this process, the State Council launched the "Broadband China" Strategy in 2013. Using a sample of A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022, this paper quantitatively estimates the impact of the "Broadband China" Strategy on the growth of total factor productivity (TFP) in digital economy sectors. The results indicate that the strategy significantly boosts TFP in digital economy firms, enhances the marginal return to capital across sectors, and promotes income distribution equality. However, it also exacerbates structural contradictions in inter-sectoral resource misallocation. Under existing resource misallocation, indirect treatment effects in a general equilibrium framework offset part of the direct treatment effects, driving an overall TFP increase of approximately 1.59%. Counterfactual analysis shows that eliminating resource misallocation caused by the strategy could further raise overall TFP to 9.76%. Finally, the study proposes policy recommendations for more effectively promoting TFP growth, strengthening industrial digitalization, and reducing inter-sectoral resource misallocation amid the deep integration of the digital and real economies in China.

Speaker Introduction：

Haisheng Yang is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Lingnan (University) College, Sun Yat-sen University. His main research areas include industrial policy evaluation, causal inference, AI and deep learning, and network analysis. Professor Yang has published nearly 80 papers in important academic journals. Among them, more than 30 papers have been published in Chinese Class A journals and SCI/SSCI journals, such as Economic Research Journal (8 papers), Management World, China Economic Quarterly, Journal of Management Sciences in China, Expert Systems with Applications, ACM Computing Surveys, Ecological Economics, Accounting and Finance, Emerging Markets Review, Economic Modeling, and Journal of Financial Markets. He has also won 5 paper awards, specifically: the First Prize in the Paper Category of the 9th Guangdong Provincial Outstanding Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences, the Second Prize of the 10th Guangdong Provincial Excellent Financial Research Achievements by the Guangdong Finance Society, and the Second Prize of the 12th Guangdong Provincial Excellent Financial Research Achievements (2 papers). His papers have been cited more than 5,000 times on CNKI and Google Scholar, and downloaded more than 12,000 times. His papers have sparked heated discussions at many important academic conferences such as the China Finance Annual Conference and were selected for IJCAI 2025. The report he participated in compiling related to the sub-project, Countermeasure Suggestions to Strengthen the Resilience of China's Science and Technology Industry Chain Taking the Silicon Valley Bank Incident as a Warning, was adopted by central ministries and commissions. Professor Yang has presided over a number of projects, including 1 General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 3 General Programs of the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, 2 General Programs of the Guangdong Provincial Soft Science Research Program, and 1 Guangzhou Municipal Natural Science Foundation Project. He has also participated in a total of 36 other national, provincial and ministerial-level projects.