Abstract: The high-quality development of manufacturing industry is crucial to promoting China’s transformation from a large manufacturing country to a manufacturing power. And the construction of digital facilities and the application of technology are the important engine to drive the transformation of the traditional manufacturing industry to the modern advanced manufacturing industry. With the in-depth carrying out of the “Digital China” strategy, the impact mechanism of digital level and institutional environment on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry needs to be further clarified. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2012 to 2019, this paper establishes a nonlinear regression model of digitalization level, institutional environment and high-quality development of manufacturing industry, so as to conduct an empirical study on the relationship between the three. The results show that the digitalization level has a significant positive effect on the high-quality development of manufacturing industry, that the institutional environment has a U-shaped moderating effect on the relationship between the digitalization level and the high-quality development of manufacturing industry, and that there are regional differences in the contribution of digitalization level to the high-quality development of manufacturing industry. Therefore, it is recommended to continuously improve the level of digitalization according to regional characteristics, and at the same time, to firmly and gradually optimize the institutional environment, which in turn will effectively contribute to the high-quality development of the manufacturing sector.

Key words: high-quality development of manufacturing, digitalization level, institutional environment