School of Economics and Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830046, Xinjiang, China.
School of Economics and Management, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, 030031, Shanxi, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Jun;30(29):74166-74185. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-27584-z. Epub 2023 May 19.
As a new economic form, the digital economy is not only empowering new impetus to economic growth, but also reshaping specific business forms of economical operation. Therefore, we conducted an empirical test to verify the impact and mechanism of pollution reduction in the digital economy, based on the panel data of 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019. The results show that, first the development of the digital economy indeed has the positive effect of realizing pollution reduction. The results of mediating effect test indicate the influence mechanism mainly rely on promoting the upgrading of industrial structure (structural effect) and upgrading the level of green technology innovation (technical effect). Second, the results of regional heterogeneity analysis show that the emission reduction effect of digital economy development on four pollutants is characterized by weakness in the east and strong in the west in regional distribution. Third, the development of digital economy has a threshold effect on the level of economic development to achieve its pollution reduction effect. Further identification of the threshold effect indicates that the higher the level of economic development, the better in emission reduction effect.
作为一种新的经济形态，数字经济不仅为经济增长注入新动力，还重塑了经济运行的具体商业模式。因此，我们利用 2011 年至 2019 年中国 280 个地级市的面板数据，对数字经济的减排效应及其作用机制进行了实证检验。结果表明：第一，数字经济发展确实具有实现减排的积极效应。中介效应检验结果表明，影响机制主要依赖于促进产业结构升级（结构效应）和提升绿色技术创新水平（技术效应）。第二，区域异质性分析结果表明，数字经济发展对四种污染物的减排效应在区域分布上呈现出东部弱、西部强的特点。第三，数字经济发展对经济发展水平实现减排效应存在门槛效应。对门槛效应的进一步识别表明，经济发展水平越高，减排效果越好。
