Linking technological innovation with high-quality economic development is a complex process. So far, there has been little academic research on the mechanism and internal law of technological innovation related to high quality economic development. After streamlining the research context of technological innovation in the deductive development of economic growth theory, this paper summarizes and extracts the core connotation of high-quality economic development from the concept of high-quality development and at micro, meso and macro dimensions. The internal law of technological innovation promoting high-quality economic development is revealed from six aspects, including total factor productivity, supply of high-quality products and services, industrial structure upgrading, consumption structure upgrading, resources and environment, and promoting social equity. This paper then puts forward policy recommendations for technological innovation promoting high-quality economic development at micro, meso and macro dimensions. Microscopically, organizations including R&D enterprises, universities and research institutes should have their creativity enhanced; mesoscopically, the levels of industrial chain, value chain and regional technological innovation growth pole should be improved; and macroscopically, China should raise its overall technology competitiveness in the world for high-quality economic development driven by technological innovation. This paper proposes six issues on technological innovation related to high-quality development that deserve in-depth discussion, including identifying the standards and boundaries of innovation, capturing the orientation of technological innovation, and raising the rate of transforming technological innovation achievements, etc.

The paper discusses the effects of the digital economy on high-quality urban development and its mechanism. Theoretically, the digital economy can empower high-quality development by boosting entrepreneurial vitality. Empirically, the paper measures the overall level of the digital economy and high-quality development of the 222 Chinese cities at and above the prefecture level during 2011–2016, depicts the entrepreneurial vitality of the cities with the microscopic data of the business registration information and makes quantitative analysis on this basis. The result shows: Digital economy has remarkably improved high-quality development and this conclusion still exists after the robustness test selecting historical data as the instrumental variables and the Broadband China pilot policy as the quasi experiment. The analysis of the mechanism of action indicates that encouraging public entrepreneurship is an important mechanism of the digital economy to release the dividend of high quality development. Finally, thanks to the threshold model and the spatial model, it is found that the positive effect of the digital economy has the characteristics of nonlinear increment and spatial spillover of the “marginal effects.” The research of the paper stimulates the reasons for high-quality development and the understanding of the effects, mechanisms and regional differences of high-quality development empowered by the digital economy.

Since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy, rapid growth has been witnessed in the Chinese economy, thanks to the introduced technological progress as well as the institutional advantages of the country. However, while this exogenous technological progress promotes economic growth quantitatively, it is, unfortunately, not conducive to the improvement of the quality of the economy. Structural imbalances have thus been produced, which hinder the high-quality development of the economy of the country. Besides, by way of the “supply and demand rebalance mechanism,” “resource optimized allocation mechanism,” and “new and old kinetic energy conversion mechanism,” original technological progress can effectively push forward the quality change, efficiency change and dynamic change in the economy, thereby promoting the innovation, coordination, greenness and openness as well as the shared development of the economy. Therefore, the current technological transformation in China needs to change from the second stage—the stage of transition from the introduced technological progress mode to the original technological progress mode then to the third stage—the stage mainly based on the original technological progress, which is the key to the successful transformation of the Chinese economy from the high-speed growth phase to the high-quality development phase.

As the largest free trade agreement in the world at present, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has made provisions for cross-border e-commerce, regional trade cooperation, data and intellectual property protection, providing new opportunities for the digital economy development with its functions of optimizing factor resource allocation, accelerating the upgrading of industrial chains and value chains, and pushing close collaboration in international trade. This research consists of mechanism analysis, risk assessment and policy suggestions. First, it analyzes the mechanism of RCEP in promoting the development of the digital industry from three dimensions, namely dual-circulation of digital industry, spatial cooperation of digital economy and digital tariff guarantee, and explores the compatibility between the provisions of the RCEP agreement and the high-quality development of the digital economy. Second, it interprets the digital rules from the intention of digital rules, domestic knowledge legislation background of the parties, the effectiveness of digital regulation and coordination in the agreement, and the external environment; it analyzes the challenges that RCEP brings to China. Finally, this paper puts forward suggestions on how to promote high-quality development of China’s digital economy with RCEP.

An index system is constructed to measure the integration of environmental protection and high-quality economic development in different cities in China from 2006 to 2018, and to explore its evolution and driving forces. From the three dimensions of integration foundation, integration depth and integration performance, this paper adopts AHP-Entropy combined weighting method to build the integration index. In addition, this paper comprehensively uses exponential decomposition, comparative analysis and σ convergence and divergence analysis to explore the spatio-temporal differences and dynamic mechanisms. The results show that the overall integration level of China’s cities continues to improve, of which technological progress is the core driving force, the transformation of development mode is a crucial path, and the intensity of environmental governance is the key support. The evolution and driving forces of the integration level of first-tier cities, new first-tier cities and other cities are significantly different. Promoting integration level is a critical way for resource-based cities to break the resource curse. Urban agglomeration integration led by the growth pole can effectively improve the overall regional integration level. This paper innovates that the relationship between environmental protection and high-quality economic development is discussed from the perspective of integration, and the paths to improve the integration level of resource-based cities and urban agglomerations are identified. This paper is helpful to clarify the differences in integration levels and driving forces of different cities, and provide a reference value for the precise implementation of high-quality development and “beautiful China.”

Since the start of the reform and opening up in 1978 China’s economy has grown rapidly, but the quality of development is relatively low. With the transformation of the principal social contradiction, low-quality development cannot respond to the needs of this situation. The central authorities proposed a new development pattern whereby domestic circulation and international circulation can boost each other, with domestic circulation as the mainstay. In the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the CPC Central Committee stressed that we should promote high-quality development as the theme to meet the growing needs of people for a better life. To solve the problem of inconsistent economic growth rate and quality of development, this paper starts by adjusting the relationship between domestic circulation and international circulation with domestic circulation as the mainstay, discusses how to create conditions for consumption upgrading and industrial upgrading from both supply and demand ends, and expounds on how to use international circulation to promote domestic circulation and better bring in international forces, so as to explore how to achieve high-quality economic development under the double-circulation pattern. Besides, the paper puts forward corresponding countermeasure suggestions.