Can Digital Economy Development Contribute to the Low-Carbon Transition? Evidence from the City Level in China

Abstract

As a new engine to promote high-quality development and a sustainable economy, the digital economy (DE) plays a key role in achieving carbon reduction targets. In this paper, we use the “broadband China (BC)” policy as a proxy variable for the DE and employ the panel data of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2019 to investigate the effect of DE development on carbon emission intensity and its mechanism of action. It is found that (1) DE development significantly reduces the carbon emissions of cities and presents dynamic and sustainable characteristics; (2) the results of mechanism tests indicate that DE development is more inclined to reduce carbon emission intensity by improving regional innovation quality than by improving regional innovation quantity; (3) the impact of DE development on carbon emission intensity differs among cities with different characteristic attributes and different environmental regulation intensity, and the emission reduction effect is more obvious in non-resource-based cities, cities with lower environmental regulation intensity, and cities with weaker environmental target constraints; (4) the impact of DE development and innovation-driven development strategies on reducing carbon emission intensity has a policy linkage effect.

Study on the Coupled and Coordinated Development and Evolution of Digital Economy and Green Technology Innovation

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Impact of digital technology on carbon emissions: Evidence from Chinese cities

“…Digital transformation is essential to improve energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions. Other studies have pointed out that digital technologies can reduce carbon emissions by promoting manufacturing agglomeration (Li X. et al, 2022), ease the financing constraints of enterprises (Yang G. et al, 2023), improve public awareness (Wang Q. et al, 2022b), and strengthen environmental regulation (Liu et al, 2023). Zhang et al (2021) argued that the digital economy has broken the restrictions of geography, time, and space while promoting efficiency improvements in all aspects from production to sales.…”

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