The impact of digital services trade in belt and road countries on China’s construction green goods export efficiency: a time - varying stochastic frontier gravity model analysis

Digital service trade, as a new engine for global trade growth, holds significant strategic importance in promoting the transformation of green goods exports. This paper is based on the panel data of 40 countries along the line from 2012 to 2022, studying the impact of the development level of their digital service trade on the export of green goods in China’s construction industry. An evaluation index system for digital service trade is constructed, and the development level of digital service trade in countries along the line is measured by the fixed-base period range entropy method. A time-varying stochastic frontier gravity model is adopted to empirically analyze the mechanism of its impact on China’s green export efficiency. The research shows that among natural factors, the economic scale of both sides, the population size of the importing country, and sharing a common language have a significant promoting effect on China’s export trade; among human factors, the development level of digital service trade in countries along the line is significantly and positively correlated with the green exports of China’s construction industry; however, China’s overall export efficiency to countries along the line is relatively low, with great room for improvement.