This paper empirically studies the impact of digital transformation on manufacturing profitability based on the panel data of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2015 to 2024. The results show that the digital transformation can significantly improve the comprehensive profitability of the manufacturing enterprises. The main transmission channels are through revenue enhancement and cost reduction. In the expansion test, the effect of the improvement of profitability brought about by digital transformation is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises and non-high-pollution industries, and the effect remains robust after solving the endogeneity problem. The conclusions fill the void of multidimensional measurement of profitability in existing research, and also provide experience for enterprises to optimize digital transformation strategies, and for policymakers to formulate targeted industrial policies.
Dong et al. (Sun,) studied this question.
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