In order to further strengthen the training of teachers and research talents in the field of international economy and trade, promote the popularization of new theories of international trade, strengthen the promotion of new methods of empirical research, and guide the rise of emerging research fields, BNUBS has held a series of lectures on "National Frontier Training on International Economics Research" since 2017. It has been successfully held for five sessions (2017-2021).

On the morning of November 27, 2022, the sixth "National Frontier Training on International Economics Research", and the Expert Forum of BNUBS, was successfully held by BNUBS. We have invited the famous economists from all over the country to give lectures on the academic frontier and major practical issues in the field of "Digital Economy and Digital Trade". It was carried out in the form of online conference, which attracted more than 250 participants from universities, research institutes and industry organizations all over the country. The whole conference lasted about 4 hours.

Prior to the keynote speech, Professor Qi Yudong, Dean of BNUBS, delivered a speech. Sheng Bin, Dean of School of Economics of Nankai University and distinguished Professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of Ministry of Education; Zhong Changbiao, Professor of Business School of Ningbo University and distinguished Professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of Ministry of Education; and Ma Shuzhong, Dean of China Digital Trade Research Institute of Zhejiang University and distinguished Professor of Qiushi, gave keynote speeches respectively. Zhong Xin, Professor of International Economics and Trade, BNUBS, and Xu Yuan, Associate Professor, had an exchange and discussion with the three experts. Professor Wei Hao, Director of the Department of International Economics and Trade, BNUBS, presided over the meeting.

　　First, Professor Qi Yudong, Dean of BNUBS, delivered a speech. President Qi first introduced the history and development status of BNUBS, as well as various achievements in recent years. Then, Dean Qi said that since 2017, BNUBS has successfully held five such lectures, which has been actively participated by teachers and students all over the country and generated a great response in the academic circle. Dean Qi pointed out that the theme of the forum centered on "Digital Trade and Digital Economy" is of great practical significance in combination with the policy background of vigorously developing digital trade and accelerating the building of a trade power and the important role of digital trade in promoting the real economy. Finally, President Qi wishes this famous lecture a complete success.

Qi Yudong, Dean of BNUBS, delivered a speech

The first guest speaker was Professor Sheng Bin, Dean of the School of Economics, Nankai University and Distinguished Professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of the Ministry of Education. The topic of his speech was "Digital Service Trade and Cross-border Data Flow". Professor Sheng Bin first pointed out the relationship between cross-border data flow and digital trade, and introduced the impact of cross-border data flow on digital trade in five aspects: matching information, supporting delivery, promoting transactions, improving efficiency and reducing costs. Secondly, Professor Sheng Bin introduced in detail the three ways of data collection, transmission and access of cross-border data flow, the characteristics of cross-border data flow and the supervision mode. Then, Professor Sheng Bin summarized and compared the international rules and governance models of cross-border data flow, and introduced the main topics of the plurilateral negotiations on WTO e-commerce and the positions and propositions of the main members. In the end, Professor Sheng Bin summarized the speech. He believed that cross-border data flow is an important lifeline of digital trade, and countries need to improve the legislation on data regulation and cross-border data flow, and improve the international cooperation and coordination mechanism.

In the discussion session, Professor Zhong Xin pointed out that Professor Sheng Bin's detailed explanation of cross-border data flow was very helpful to systematically understand the influencing factors of cross-border data flow, how to regulate cross-border data flow and China's main propositions on cross-border data flow. In response to Professor Zhong Xin's question about the major problems of digital payment, Professor Sheng Bin pointed out that the privacy protection of digital payment and the security of financial data flow in the payment process are the key issues that need to be considered at present. From a quantitative analysis perspective, Associate Professor Xu pointed out that in future research on cross-border data flows, variables and indicators related to cross-border data flows can be further established for detailed empirical analysis.

　　Professor Sheng Bin, Dean of School of Economics, Nankai University, Special Professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of Ministry of Education

The second keynote speaker was Prof. Zhong Changbiao, Distinguished Professor of "Cheung Kong Scholars" of the Ministry of Education, Business School of Ningbo University. The topic of his speech was "Digital Economy and Development of Economic Theory". First of all, Professor Zhong stressed that digital economy will reshape human civilization, which is mainly reflected in the fact that digital technology has profoundly changed the way of human production and life, and given birth to new economic structures such as social network, platform economy and ecological economy, which will bring fundamental and comprehensive changes to human society, and also have an important impact on the theoretical development and talent training of economic disciplines. Then, Professor Zhong systematically elaborated the impact of digital economy on the development of economic theories, including the evolution process of economic causal thinking mode, the limitations of traditional economic theoretical assumptions and the impact of big data thinking on cognitive analysis and the development of economic theories. Finally, Professor Zhong put forward 9 typical problems existing in the expansion of economic theories caused by digital economy, which provides new research directions and ideas for the majority of scholars.

During the discussion session, Professor Zhong Xin thought that the content of Professor Zhong's speech was very enlightening, and asked questions and discussed the industrial policies to promote the rapid development of the core industries of the digital economy. With data being positioned as new factors of production and strategic assets, Associate Professor Xu said that when data was incorporated into production functions and the connotation of labor factors was expanded, scholars needed to rethink and develop economics theories from the perspective of digital economy.

Professor Zhong Changbiao, Business School of Ningbo University and Distinguished Professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of Ministry of Education

The third guest speaker is Professor Ma Shuzhong, Dean of China Digital Trade Research Institute of Zhejiang University and Distinguished Professor of Qiushi University. The topic of his speech is "Consumers from the perspective of Digital Trade". First of all, Professor Ma Shuzhong emphasized the importance of the role of consumers in digital trade from the perspective of differentiation of consumption preferences. Then, Professor Ma Shuzhong analyzed consumer behavior from multiple dimensions, such as price dispersion and consumer search, information asymmetry and consumer feedback, information overload and consumer attention, etc. Finally, Professor Ma Shuzhong summarized the connotation and extension of consumer privacy protection, emphasized that as an important participant in digital trade, the protection of consumer's personal data sovereignty and rights and interests has been paid more and more attention, and introduced the policies and regulations issued by various countries in view of consumer privacy security issues.

In the discussion session, Professor Zhong Xin mentioned that there are differences between traditional consumers and consumers in the digital trade perspective. In this regard, Professor Ma Shuzhong added that e-commerce can simultaneously reflect consumer preferences and behaviors in multiple links such as marketing, processing and research and development, and digital trade can lead the future consumption trend in real time. Prof. Xu pointed out that the consumer psychology analysis framework and concerns of domestic and foreign consumers in the digital trade perspective were different. Prof. Ma also agreed that when studying digital trade, it is important to pay attention to the different nationalities of consumers. Associate Professor Xu further suggested that factors such as product types, searching costs and information overload could be integrated into a unified framework to assess the impact of digital trade on consumer welfare levels.

Professor Ma Shuzhong, Dean of China Digital Trade Research Institute, Zhejiang University, Qiushi Distinguished Professor

Professor Zhong Xin, BNUBS

Xu Yuan, Associate Professor, BNUBS

Professor Wei Hao, BNUBS, presided over the meeting

　　At the end of the meeting, Professor Wei Hao from BNUBS made a summary of the meeting. Professor Wei Hao pointed out that the three experts made detailed explanations and discussions on cutting-edge topics in the field of digital trade and digital economy from different perspectives and levels. The contents were rich and the profound topics were summarized in a simple way, which provided valuable materials for the later relevant research and pointed out the direction, effectively promoting academic exchanges among researchers in the field of international trade in universities across the country. It would bring great inspiration for scholars to develop new research problems. In the future, BNUBS would continue to devote itself to improving the teaching level of world economy and international trade and strengthening the cultivation of high-end talents.

　　 Edited by Lu Ziwei, Wei Hao

Reviewed by Cai Hongbo