Page 280 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS587 Shujian X. et al.
1. Introduction
At present, the global economy is gradually entering the era of digital
economy. Due to the different degrees of integration between digital
technology and traditional economy in the world, countries have not yet
reached a consensus on the definition of digital economy. Countries at
different stages of development have different definitions. On the basis of the
"G20 Digital Economy Development and Cooperation Initiative", the China
Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT)(2018)
defines the digital economy as "a digital production of knowledge and
information as the key production factor, with digital technology innovation
as the core driving force, with modern information networks as the important
carrier, through the deep integration of digital technology and the real
economy, continuously improves the digitalization and intelligence level of
traditional industries, and accelerates the reconstruction of the new economic
form of economic development and government governance model. The
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines
the connotation and extension of the digital economy from the perspective of
inclusive development and digital transaction accounting. It points out that
the digital economy is standardized, dynamic, and data-driven. The essential
characteristics of structural dispersion, and the digital economy can be
identified by whether the transaction activity is digitally ordered, platform-
enabled or digitally delivered.
Regarding the overall development trend of the digital economy and
relevant statistical problems, the results of CAICT studies (2018) show that the
digital economy of the G20 countries is developing at a high speed. The digital
economy of China in 2017 reached 4.02 trillion US dollars, second to the
United States. However, the deepening of digital technology in the world is
facing the Solow productivity paradox: although the digital economy in the
world is developing rapidly, the productivity growth rate of all countries is
generally facing a downward trend. For example, the secretariat of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) (2018) estimates that from 2000 to 2017, both
the industrialized and developing economies of the APEC region have a
tendency to decline in labor productivity growth.
In response to this problem, Shujian Xiang and Wenjun Wu (2018) reviews
that the OECD has repeatedly pointed out in recent studies that the current
slowdown in productivity growth may be due to the limitations of existing
statistical methods in accounting for the digital economy and conducted a
series of in-depth theoretical discussions and empirical analysis on the official
statistics of OECD countries. The results of existing studies indicate that the
current national economic accounting framework generally lacks sufficient
explanations for the digital economic phenomenon. It has limited information
on the main body, the transactions and products of the digital economy. This
will cause statistical mismeasurement, causing problems in the analysis of

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