Has the Digital Economy Reduced Carbon Emissions?: Analysis Based on Panel Data of 278 Cities in China

The deep integration of digital economy and green development has become an inevitable requirement and an important aid in achieving the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and promoting high-quality economic development. At the same time, the manufacturing industry is the main sector of energy consumption and carbon emissions in China and the main force for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This paper constructs a mathematical model to measure the scale of the digital economy development and the efficiency of the green, low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry. It builds a panel data model to study the effect of the development of the digital economy on the green, low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry based on data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2016 to 2020. The results find that (1) there is a significant positive effect of the digital economy on the green, low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry, with an impact coefficient of 0.477, and this finding remains significant in the robustness test. (2) A further test of the mediating effect finds that the digital economy can drive the green, low-carbon transformation of the manufacturing industry by enhancing technological innovation, and it shows a partial mediating effect that accounts for 28% of the total effect. (3) In the regional heterogeneity analysis, it is found that the effect of the digital economy in promoting manufacturing transformation is more prominent in the central region, and the impact coefficients are 0.684, 0.806, 0.340, and 0.392 for the east, central, west, and northeast regions, respectively. This study can provide a theoretical basis and policy support for governments and enterprises.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Digital Economy on Manufacturing Green and Low-Carbon Transformation under the Dual-Carbon Background in China

Zhang

Zhou

Chen

et al. 2022

“…As an essential part of economic development, the digital economy not only provides new opportunities for economic growth but also plays a vital role in carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. With the development of the economy, more and more cities have achieved the absolute decoupling of economic growth with carbon emissions and achieved the transition to green and low-carbon development [ 17 ]. A digital economy can promote carbon emission reduction by enhancing innovation capacity, alleviating financing constraints [ 18 ], promoting industrial structure upgrading [ 19 ], and increasing investment in R&D [ 20 ], etc.…”

Section: Theoretical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Digital Economy Development on Carbon Emission Efficiency: A Spatial Econometric Analysis Based on Chinese Provinces and Cities

Liu

Zhang

Gong

et al. 2022

In the realistic context of the development of China’s digital economy and carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, to efficiently achieve high-quality economic and green and low-carbon transformation, this paper investigates the impact of digital economy development on the carbon emission efficiency of 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 2011–2019. In this paper, firstly, the digital economy development index and carbon emission efficiency are calculated by the entropy method and the Super-SBM-Undesirable Model. Secondly, the Spatial Lag Model (SAR) and the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) are respectively constructed under the adjacency matrix and the geographic distance matrix to empirically test the spatial impact of the digital economy on carbon emission efficiency. The results show that: the digital economy development and carbon emission efficiency of Chinese provinces and cities both show the spatial distribution characteristics of stronger in the East and weaker in the Middle and West; the digital economy development in Chinese provinces and cities has a significantly positive direct and spatial spillover effect on carbon emission efficiency; there are differences in the direct and spatial spillover effects of various dimensions of the digital economy development on the carbon emission efficiency in Chinese provinces and cities; the direct effect of the digital economy development on the carbon emission efficiency in Chinese provinces and cities has significant regional heterogeneity among eastern, central, and western regions. This paper provides new empirical evidence for developing countries such as China to proactively develop a digital economy to promote energy conservation and emission reduction to realize green and low-carbon transformation.

“…(4) The super-efficient SBM model was adopted to recalculate the urban carbon emission efficiency. (5) Drawing on existing research [ 62 ], an index system was used to measure the level of big data construction. (6) The carbon emission performance measured by carbon emission intensity (carbon emissions per unit GDP) was used as the explained variable for robustness tests.…”

Section: Empirical Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Big Data Affect Urban Low-Carbon Transformation—A Quasi-Natural Experiment from China

Zhang²,

et al. 2022

As a new factor of production, data play a key role in driving low-carbon and sustainable development relying on the digital economy. However, previous studies have ignored this point. Based on the panel data of 283 cities in China from 2007 to 2019, we investigated the construction of national big data comprehensive pilot zones (NBDCPZs) in China as a quasi-natural experiment, using the difference-in-differences (DID) model to empirically test the impact of NBDCPZ policies on urban low-carbon transformation. The following conclusions can be drawn: NBDCPZ construction significantly promotes urban low-carbon transformation, and a series of robustness analysis supports this conclusion. NBDCPZ constructions mainly promotes urban low-carbon transformation by stimulating urban green innovation and optimizing the allocation of urban resource elements. Compared with eastern cities, small and medium-sized cities, and resource-based cities, the construction of NBDCPZs can promote the low-carbon transformation of cities in central and western China, large cities, and non-resource-based cities. Further analysis shows that the construction of NBDCPZs can only improve the low-carbon transformation of local cities, with negative spatial spillover effects on the low-carbon transformation of surrounding cities. Therefore, in the future, it is vital to consider the promotion effect of the construction of NBDCPZs on the low-carbon transformation of local cities and prevent its negative impact on the low-carbon transformation of surrounding cities.