School of Economics, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, China.
School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Aug;366:121742. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.121742. Epub 2024 Jul 16.
While the growth of digital infrastructure theoretically offers increased opportunities for enterprises, the policy implications may vary depending on the firm size. We utilize the pilot policy of the Broadband China Strategy as an exogenous shock for firms and adopt a unique dataset from the National Tax Survey to investigate the impact of digital infrastructure expansion on the carbon intensity of small enterprises. The results indicate that digital infrastructure expansion leads to a notable increase of 9.04% in small firm's carbon intensity. These results exhibit resilience, withstanding rigorous testing through various robustness checks. This increase is primarily attributed to two channels: the competition effect, which results in a decline in small firm's output, and the change in energy structure, which leads to an increase in small firm's carbon emissions. Heterogeneity analysis reveals a more pronounced increase for small enterprises located in regions with less stringent environmental regulations and in industries with higher degree of market concentration. Our conclusion suggests that the government should pay attention to the survival and development of small enterprises. This entails ensuring fair market competition on digital platforms and preventing the dominant enterprises from abusing their information advantages to jeopardize the interests of small enterprises.
虽然数字基础设施的增长理论上为企业提供了更多的机会，但政策的影响可能因企业规模而异。我们利用“宽带中国战略”的试点政策作为企业的外生冲击，并采用国家税收调查的独特数据集，研究数字基础设施扩张对小企业碳强度的影响。结果表明，数字基础设施的扩张导致小企业的碳强度显著增加了 9.04%。这些结果具有弹性，通过各种稳健性检验经受住了严格的测试。这种增长主要归因于两个渠道：竞争效应，导致小企业的产出下降，以及能源结构的变化，导致小企业的碳排放增加。异质性分析表明，在环境法规较宽松的地区和市场集中程度较高的行业，小企业的增长更为明显。我们的结论表明，政府应关注小企业的生存和发展。这需要确保数字平台上的公平市场竞争，并防止占主导地位的企业滥用其信息优势，危害小企业的利益。
