The Digital Economy and Carbon Productivity: Evidence at China’s City Level

Abstract

Based on the panel data of 285 prefecture-level cities in China, this paper empirically tests the impact of digital economic development on carbon productivity by using a two-way fixed effect model, intermediary mechanism model and threshold mechanism model. The results show that: (1) the digital economy can significantly improve carbon productivity, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. (2) An intermediary mechanism test found that technological innovation, reducing energy consumption intensity and improving urban productivity are the three primary paths through which the digital economy significantly improves carbon productivity. (3) A threshold mechanism test found that the promotion effect of the digital economy on carbon productivity is also affected by the degree of marketization and the level of human capital, showing a single threshold effect and a U-shaped trend. (4) The impact of the digital economy on carbon productivity has regional heterogeneity, urban agglomeration heterogeneity, and resource-based city heterogeneity. This study provides substantial empirical evidence for the relevant authorities to formulate green development policies from the perspective of digital economy development.

The impact of the digital economy on carbon emission intensity: Evidence from China

“…Referring to the research of , digital infrastructure includes telephone penetration rate, the number of internet broadband access ports, and the number of domain names. Referring to the research of Zhao et al (2022a), innovative elements include the number of scientific research and experimental development (R&D) personnel, the proportion of R&D funds to gross domestic product (GDP), etc. Referring to the research of Wang and Shi (2021), the digital industry refers to software business income and telecom industry income, and industrial digitalization refers to the number of websites owned by every hundred enterprises and e-commerce sales.…”

A systematic framework to improve the digital green innovation performance of photovoltaic materials for building energy system

“…The benefits and advantages provided by digitization in the photovoltaic industry can achieve the benefits of reducing costs and improving performance [39]. Zhao et al (2022) empirically tested the positive impact of digital economy development on improving carbon productivity based on panel data from 285 prefecture level cities in China, using a bidirectional fixed effects model, an intermediary mechanism model, and a threshold mechanism model [40]. Ji et al (2023) pointed out that digital service has a significant positive impact on improving the performance level of MI and reducing the production cost of enterprises, and as an intermediate variable, it can effectively improve the innovation level of manufacturing enterprises to reduce carbon emissions and ultimately promote the digital green and sustainable development of enterprises [41].…”

How does digital transformation affect corporate social responsibility performance? From the dual perspective of internal drive and external governance

“…In addition, since there are many factors affecting CSR performance, there may exist missing variables in this article. In order to address the endogenous problems, following Zhao et al (2022)…”

“…In addition, since there are many factors affecting CSR performance, there may exist missing variables in this article. In order to address the endogenous problems, following Zhao et al (2022), this paper uses the historical data related to the level of informatization at the city level as instrumental variables. Specifically, following Nunn and Qian (2014), this paper constructs tool variables with the interaction terms of the number of telephones per 100 people in each city in 1984 and national Internet users in the previous year.…”