Research on the Impact and Mechanism of Digital Empowerment on Agricultural Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China

Abstract

Whether digital empowerment can promote the dual-carbon process in agriculture and how its specific mechanisms of action work is a significant proposition that deserves in-depth research. Based on panel data from 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2012 to 2021, this paper calculates the level of digital empowerment in regional agriculture using the input-output method. Based on clarifying the theoretical mechanism of the impact of digital empowerment development on agricultural carbon emissions, it employs methods such as the two-way fixed effect model, dynamic panel model, mediation effect model, and spatial econometric model to multidimensionally empirically explore the impact of digital empowerment development on agricultural carbon emissions and its mechanisms. The study finds that: (1) From 2012 to 2021, the level of digital empowerment in Chinese agriculture has been on an upward trend, but only in economically developed regions is this upward momentum apparent. At the same time, China's agricultural carbon emissions from 2012 to 2021 show a clear trend of initially increasing and then decreasing. (2) The development of digital empowerment has a significant inverted U-shaped non-linear impact on agricultural carbon emissions, and at present, the level of agricultural digital empowerment in most provinces in China has not yet crossed the inflection point of inhibiting agricultural carbon emissions, which still holds after endogeneity tests and robustness tests. (3) The mechanism analysis results show that digital empowerment reduces agricultural carbon emissions by optimizing carbon-intensive factor inputs and improving factor allocation efficiency. (4) Heterogeneity analysis results indicate that digital empowerment has a significant inverted U-shaped impact on agricultural carbon emissions in economically developed areas, while its impact on moderately developed and less developed economic areas is not significant; in non-grain main producing areas, the inhibitory effect of digital empowerment is more pronounced. (5) Further discussion reveals that digital empowerment has an inverted U-shaped spatial spillover effect on agricultural carbon emissions in neighboring areas. The aforementioned research results provide substantial empirical evidence for policymakers on how to better promote the development of digital empowerment and enhance the coordination of China's digital infrastructure in regional environmental governance.