Research on Digital Economy Development Enabling the Transformation and Upgrading of Industrial Structure in Hebei Province

In the context of digital economy empowering the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, based on the panel data of cities in Hebei Province from 2018 to 2022, the study is conducted to measure the level of digital economy development of cities in Hebei Province by using the entropy weighting method with linear weighting and explore the impact of the level of digital economy development on the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure of the cities in Hebei Province based on the measurement results by using the bi-directional fixed-effects model. The study finds that there are large differences in the level of digital economy development and industrial structure transformation and upgrading among the cities in Hebei Province. Through the analysis of the multiple linear regression model, it is finally determined that the development of digital economy in the cities of Hebei Province is conducive to promoting the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure. The conclusion remains significant after introducing control variables as well as replacing the explanatory variables and controlling the endogeneity problem.