Assessing e-commerce impacts on China's CO emissions: testing the CKC hypothesis.

This paper made the first attempt to summarize the rules from a regional perspective and use panel data to explore the carbon Kuznets curve (CKC) between e-commerce and carbon dioxide emissions. The impact of online shopping on carbon emission has mixed conclusions. No CKC tests set mainly focuses on the e-commerce sector, which can help this research determine the relationship between e-commerce and carbon emissions. From a macro point of view, we examine both developed and developing regions by testing the CKC hypothesis. We try to explain it by exploring the econometric relationship between e-commerce and CO emissions. At first, we attempt to accurately measure the CO emissions by carefully distinguishing the carbon emission increments caused by the primary energy resulting from the secondary energy. Then, we use panel data collected from different Chinese cities during 2001-2017. The analyzed variables are stationary at their first differences with the LLC test, IPS test, Fisher-ADF test, Fisher-PP test, CADF, and CIPS unit root tests. The analyzed variables are cointegrated by employing the Pedroni panel cointegration test, the Kao panel cointegration test, and the Westerlund panel cointegration test. Using the DOLS, we also find that increases in trade openness decrease carbon emissions while increases in foreign direct investment (FDI) and market size contribute to the level of emissions. The quadratic-shape CKC hypothesis is supported for China, Eastern China, and Western China, and it is an inverted "U" shape. The cubic-form CKC is supported for Central China, and it is an "N" shape. Our study provides important insights for enacting regional and country-level e-commerce regulations and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.