Impact of Biased Technological Change on High-Quality Economic Development of China’s Forestry: Based on Mediating Effect of Industrial Structure Upgrading

Abstract

The high-quality development of the forestry economy refers not only to the quantity of economic growth but also to the improvement of its quality, that is, driving forestry economic development through technological change and industrial structure upgrading. In this paper, a multi-angle indicator evaluation system and obstacle model were constructed to explore the current situation and obstacle factors of the high-quality development of the forestry economy in 31 Chinese provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) from 2005 to 2020. At the same time, based on the mediating effect of industrial structure upgrading, a mediating effects model was constructed to analyze the direct and indirect effects of forestry’s biased technological change on high-quality economic development. The results showed three key findings: (1) There was regional heterogeneity in the high-quality development of the forestry economy in China, and the biggest obstacle factor was technological change. (2) Forestry’s biased technological change had a significant positive effect on high-quality economic development, with a total effect of 0.222; industrial structure upgrading played a partial mediating effect, and 16.7% of the effect was indirectly realized by promoting industrial structure upgrading. (3) The contribution of forestry’s biased technological change to high-quality economic development in the western and northeastern regions was greater than that in the eastern and central regions. Based on this, the promotion of the high-quality development of the forestry economy and the enhancement of industrial structure upgrading through optimizing biased technological change were suggested.