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Keywords

digital economy, urban carbon emission intensity, spatial spillover effect, scale effect

Abstract

With the proposal of “30·60” double carbon target and the development of digital economy in China, the influence mode and mechanism of digital economy development on carbon emission intensity have attracted increasing attention from domestic and foreign economic circles. On the one hand, from the perspective of industrial structure, the optimization of industrial structure is helpful to improve the productivity level of the whole society. The use of digital technology represented by digital information and electronic communication technology in industrial sectors has rapidly improved machine productivity and energy clean efficiency, thus reducing carbon emissions from the perspective of average emissions. From this perspective, the development of digital economy has made positive contributions to carbon emissions. On the other hand, however, the development of digital economy will also have a negative impact on carbon dioxide emissions. With the increase of capital investment and the expansion of production caused by the improvement of production efficiency, the scale effect caused by the increase of the use of machinery and equipment has also brought about an increase in carbon emissions. In addition, because all information and communication technology products needed for the development of digital economy need electricity to run, the rapid development of digital economy has led to an increase in power demand, and the electricity consumption related to information and communication technology in workplaces and families has also increased significantly, and electricity is the biggest contributor to carbon emissions, which will inevitably lead to an increase in carbon emissions. To sum up, the impact of the development of digital economy on carbon emission intensity shows a two-way effect of both promoting and reducing. At present, there is no consensus on the research of this impact mode and intensity,there are abundant studies on digital economy and carbon emissions in economics, but there is no agreement on the measurement methods of them, and the research conclusions based on different data and models also show different results. In addition, the existing research on the impact of digital economy on carbon emissions is mostly at the level of provincial data, and most of them are plane-dimensional data analysis, while carbon emissions obviously have obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics, and a single plane-dimensional analysis has limited support for the reality. It is of great practical significance to further study its impact effect and mechanism. Based on the urban panel data of 278 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper uses the spatial Dobbin model to analyze the impact of digital economy development on carbon emission intensity, and further analyzes its spatial spillover effect and mechanism. The results show that the development of digital economy promotes the local carbon emission intensity of cities; From the perspective of spatial spillover effect, it has a negative spatial spillover effect on carbon emissions in surrounding areas; From the mechanism of action, it is mainly realized through the scale effect of digital economy development. This paper makes a useful attempt to study the relationship between digital economy and carbon emission intensity, and puts forward policy suggestions on how to correctly guide the digital economy to play its role in reducing carbon. It is of great practical significance to accurately measure the relationship between digital economy development and carbon emission intensity in China, thus enriching the existing empirical research. This paper makes a useful attempt to study the relationship between digital economy and carbon emission intensity, and puts forward policy suggestions on how to correctly guide the digital economy to play its role in reducing carbon.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2023.03.004

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