Search Results (52)

The rapid development of the digital economy and the pursuit of green transformation are reshaping the innovation landscape of Chinese firms. However, limited attention has been paid to how digital industry agglomeration (DIA) influences corporate green innovation (CGI) at the firm level. Drawing on panel data from China’s A-share listed firms between 2017 and 2021, this study examines the differential effects of specialized agglomeration and diversified agglomeration of digital industry on CGI. The results indicate that DIA can promote CGI, with a 1% increase in DIA associated with a 1.503% increase in green innovation output. Further analysis reveals that specialized agglomeration exerts a significant positive effect, while diversified agglomeration has no evident impact. Our mechanism analysis indicates that knowledge spillovers serve as the key channel through which DIA fosters CGI. Moreover, heterogeneous effects analysis indicates that DIA exerts a stronger influence on non-high-tech enterprises and in regions where environmental regulation is less stringent. Drawing on these insights, fostering specialized digital clusters and strengthening knowledge-sharing mechanisms can help alleviate existing constraints on innovation diffusion, accelerating green innovation and supporting long-term sustainability. Full article

This study investigates the role of the digital economy (DE) in advancing the high-quality development of manufacturing in China, with a particular focus on the moderating effects of manufacturing agglomeration and digital literacy. Using provincial panel data from 2013 to 2023, we find that the digital economy significantly enhances manufacturing development across three key dimensions: green transformation, innovation, and high-end industrial upgrading. Manufacturing agglomeration strengthens this effect, especially in the Eastern and Western regions, by facilitating digital spillovers and leveraging digital infrastructure. However, in the Central region, the impact of agglomeration is weaker, hindered by fragmented industrial clusters and underdeveloped digital infrastructure. The study also highlights significant regional differences in the moderating effect of digital literacy. In the Eastern region, digital literacy negatively moderates the relationship between DE and manufacturing development due to skill mismatches, while in the Western region, localized concentrations of digital skills have a positive but geographically constrained impact. Temporal analysis reveals a shift in the moderating role of digital literacy, with its negative effect becoming more pronounced after 2018, suggesting a growing need for targeted skill development policies. These findings underscore the importance of regionally tailored strategies to promote digital manufacturing integration, with a focus on sustainable development through digital transformation and green manufacturing practices. Full article

As the mainstream financial modality in the digital economy era, digital finance drives industrial digitization and green transformation through capital and technological support, enabling governments to advance environmental governance with greater precision, efficiency, and sustainability. Utilizing 2012–2023 panel data from 31 Chinese provinces, this study innovatively constructs a multidimensional panel data model for the quantitative analysis of the overall impact, heterogeneous effects, and spatial spillover effects of digital finance on government environmental governance. It further examines the mediating effect and the threshold effects of new quality productive forces, and the moderated mediation effects of green technological innovation and industrial collaborative agglomeration. In this study, (1) digital finance significantly drives government environmental governance, and this finding exhibits robustness; (2) digital finance exerts heterogeneous impact on government environmental governance, with more pronounced effects in eastern and sub-developed regions; (3) digital finance generates positive spatial spillover effects on government environmental governance; (4) new quality productive forces positively mediate the relationship between digital finance and government environmental governance; (5) green technological innovation exhibits dual moderation characteristics, moderating both “digital finance → new quality productive forces” and “new quality productive forces → government environmental governance,” while industrial collaborative agglomeration shows single moderation, specifically moderating “new quality productive forces → government environmental governance”; (6) the impact of digital finance on government environmental governance presents a nonlinear feature of “increasing marginal returns.” On these accounts, this study proposes targeted recommendations from six dimensions. Full article

Drawing upon a quasi-natural experiment, this research investigates the influence of China’s National Digital Economy Innovation Development Pilot Policy on urban energy intensity. By examining a sample of 282 Chinese cities with the difference in differences (DID) approach, the findings provide robust empirical support for the proposition that digital economy pilot policies substantially reduce urban energy intensity. Furthermore, the policy’s effectiveness in lowering urban energy intensity differs across cities with varying administrative levels and population scales. The results suggest that the policy’s impact is more pronounced in ordinary cities (non-provincial capitals/municipalities) and in those with smaller populations. An examination of the underlying mechanisms reveals three principal pathways through which the policy affects energy consumption: (1) digital economic development, which promotes optimal resource allocation and enhanced energy intensity; (2) technological innovation, driving advances in green technologies and supporting sustainable industrial upgrades; and (3) economic agglomeration, which leverages economies of scale and industrial clustering to bolster energy efficiency. The conclusions underscore the necessity of expanding digital economy pilot zones, strengthening investments in digital infrastructure, and fostering greater technological innovation to sustain improvements in energy efficiency and environmental performance. Full article

The digital economy has profoundly reshaped industrial organizational structures and the spatial distribution of cooperative agglomerations in the manufacturing and productive service sectors. To support the coordinated and sustainable development of China’s industries, it is essential to clarify how the digital economy influences industrial cooperative agglomeration. This study first constructs a comprehensive index system capturing the quality, quantity, and synergy of industrial cooperative agglomeration, enabling an evaluation of collaborative agglomeration levels across 30 Chinese provinces. Second, the relationship between the digital economy and industrial collaborative agglomeration is examined using both static and dynamic spatial panel models. Finally, the paper investigates regional disparities in this relationship across eastern, central, and western China. The results reveal the following findings: (1) The digital economy has a significant inhibitory effect on industrial collaborative agglomeration overall. (2) Dynamic spatial lag model results show an inverted U-shaped relationship, where the digital economy initially promotes but later inhibits industrial agglomeration, with notable temporal lags and spatial spillover effects. (3) In eastern China, digital economy growth suppresses local agglomeration while promoting it in neighboring regions; in the central region, it enhances local agglomeration but dampens it in adjacent areas; and in the western region, the relationship is nonlinear and U-shaped. Full article

Economic decarbonization has gained attention as a viable way to achieve carbon neutrality without sacrificing high-quality economic development. Regional integration (RI), technological innovation (TI), and the digital economy (DIE) are important decarbonization driving forces. To analyze how they impact carbon reduction and the evolutionary patterns observed in urban development, this study focuses on the urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and uses the spatial Durbin model (SDM) to decompose the carbon reduction effects into spatial spillover effects and short-term and long-term effects. The research findings include the following: (1) The decarbonization driving forces have promoted economic decarbonization in the YRD and exhibit distinct evolutionary patterns. (2) The decarbonization effects exhibit spatiotemporal heterogeneity depending on the economic situation, period, and energy status of the cities. Over time, TI and DIE demonstrate better decarbonization effects. Economically developed cities are more likely to expand their carbon reduction advantages, while cities with dense energy supplies struggle to achieve their full carbon reduction potential due to traditional energy structures. (3) Industrial structure upgrading (UIS) is a critical pathway through which TI and DIE reduce carbon emissions. These findings enrich existing research on decarbonization drivers and offer valuable insights for governments to formulate further policies for economic decarbonization. Full article

In the context of Industry 4.0, the transformative integration of intelligent digitalization, sustainable practices, and cross-sectoral industrial convergence within manufacturing systems constitutes a strategic imperative for addressing global climate emergencies and accelerating resource scarcity. Using panel data from 279 prefecture-level cities and the multiperiod difference-in-differences (DID) approach, this study investigates the impact of intelligent manufacturing on urban green innovation efficiency and its heterogeneous effects. The results reveal that intelligent manufacturing significantly enhances urban green innovation efficiency through scale agglomeration, economic agglomeration, and talent agglomeration, with robustness confirmed by propensity score matching DID tests and double machine learning. In addition, financial development has a nonlinear moderating effect on this relationship. When financial development surpasses the critical threshold of 3.817, its positive moderating effect becomes significantly enhanced. Heterogeneity analyses demonstrate that the benefits of intelligent manufacturing are more pronounced in the middle and western regions, noncentral cities, and cities with advanced industrial intelligence, robust digital finance ecosystems, or stringent environmental regulations. These findings provide novel insights into the dynamic mechanisms through which intelligent manufacturing fosters green innovation, offering policymakers in developing economies a framework to tailor regional strategies, optimize governance systems, and harness intelligent manufacturing as a catalyst for sustainable, innovation-driven growth. Full article

Digital technology drives global industrial transformation. The synchronized development of organizational digital transformation and innovation systems is pivotal in corporate strategy and governmental governance. The dynamic interaction mechanisms among digital economy, government innovation policy, and regional innovation capacity remain insufficiently explored. This study employs panel data from 15 prefecture-level cities within the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, spanning the years 2012 to 2020, and uses the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model to investigate the interrelationships among the digital economy, government innovation preferences (the government’s supportive attitude and policy inclination towards innovative activities in the fields of science and technology as well as economic development), and regional innovation capacity. This research emphasizes the impact of the digital economy on regional innovation capacity and the influence of government innovation preferences on regional innovation capacity. The findings indicate that both the digital economy and government innovation preferences significantly enhance technological and product innovation, with this effect being particularly pronounced in the initial stages but diminishing over time. The three dimensions of the digital economy exert varying effects on technological and product innovation. Specifically, digital application has the most substantial impact on technological innovation, whereas infrastructure has a more pronounced effect on product innovation. Overall, the influence of government innovation preferences on technological and product innovation is less significant than that of the digital economy. The intensity of government innovation preferences has a greater impact than does the structure of government innovation preferences; however, in the long term, the structure of government innovation preferences can exert a more stable and sustainable influence. This study offers policy implications for constructing an innovation ecosystem driven by the synergy between government and market forces, particularly in optimizing data governance systems and planning sustainable transformation pathways, which hold practical value. Full article

Improving the efficiency of green development is a crucial step towards achieving the “dual carbon” goal and promoting regional sustainable development. Currently, China has made a decision to foster new quality productive forces, aiming at upgrading traditional productive forces by digitization, which brings new opportunities for urban green transformation. Drawing upon a perspective from new quality productive forces, this paper constructs a framework of impact mechanism about “production factors–productivity–production relations” and uses 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt to investigate the impact effects, mechanisms, and disparities of the digital economy on urban green development. The research findings indicate the following: (1) The digital economy has a nonlinear influence on green development, with a critical value of 0.149. The conclusion still valid after “Utest” and robustness checks. (2) With the new strategy, digital economy indirectly influences urban green process through nonlinear mediating effects of green technology and green finance, as well as linear mediating effects of resource allocation and industrial structure. (3) There are notable effects heterogeneity across urban agglomerations and individual cities, as well as between resource-based and non-resource-based cities. (4) Furthermore, the policy intensity exerts a stage enhancing effect on the influence. With the promotion of digital policies such as Broadband China, the influence shows a phased increasing trend. The research provides valuable insights for harnessing new quality productive forces to power the digital economy and regional green transformation. Full article

The digital economy, as a major economic form after the agricultural and industrial economies, has become a new driving force in the development of the national economy, and it may provide opportunities for rural economic development through new businesses such as the platform economy and live e-commerce. However, there may also be a risk of a digital divide, and the mechanism of its impact on shared prosperity needs to be scientifically verified. Based on the panel data of 2243 counties in China from 2011 to 2021, the article empirically examines how the digital economy promotes common prosperity among regions and the spatial spillover effects of the digital economy. The findings suggest that, first, the geographic distance matrix reveals a positive spatial relationship between the digital economy and shared prosperity, and the phenomenon of geo-graphic agglomeration is observed, which manifests itself as a high-high-low aggregation. Second, the digital economy has had an impact that transcends space, enabling counties to both “expand the cake” and “share the cake” more equitably. Third, the coordinated, inclusive, and structurally optimizing effects of the digital economy help counties achieve common prosperity by upgrading the level of public services and promoting the upgrading of industrial structure. Ultimately, the digital economy promotes the common prosperity and long-term development of county economies through innovation-driven and optimized resource allocation. Full article

In the context of high-quality economic development, the empowering effect of regional integration policies on urban green and low-carbon development has significantly strengthened, playing a crucial strategic role in achieving the coordinated development of the economy and ecology. This study uses the expansion of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration as a quasi-natural experimental scenario, analyzing the pathways and mechanisms through which regional integration policies influence urban green and low-carbon development based on panel data from Chinese cities between 2004 and 2022, using a multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) model. The empirical results show the following: ① Regional integration policies significantly enhance the efficiency of urban green and low-carbon development, a conclusion that remains robust after a series of robustness tests, including PSM-DID estimation, placebo tests, instrumental variable methods, indicator reconstruction, and policy interference exclusion. ② Mechanism tests reveal that regional integration policies mainly drive the green and low-carbon transformation through three channels: innovation investment, industrial upgrading, and talent aggregation. ③ Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive impact of regional integration policies on the green and low-carbon development of cities is more significant in eastern regions, resource-based cities, small and medium-sized cities, and old industrial cities. Spatial effect tests show that regional integration development has a significant spatial spillover effect on urban green and low-carbon transformation. Based on these findings, it is recommended that, in the future, in global efforts should be made to continuously improve the regional collaborative governance system, strengthen multi-dimensional linkage mechanisms in urban agglomerations, and build a policy support framework that drives innovation and optimizes the allocation of factors. This study not only provides empirical support for the green efficiency enhancement mechanisms of regional integration policies but also offers decision-making references for promoting regional coordinated development and achieving green economic growth in the digital economy era. Full article

The digital economy (DE) and real economy (RE) are dual pillars of the modern economic system. The deep integration of the digital economy and real economy (IDR) has emerged as a pivotal strategic trend. IDR not only can enhance international competitiveness but also contributes to sustainable development goals. This work collects DE and RE data from 30 provinces in China between 2012 and 2022. The entropy weight method and the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model are employed to measure the level of IDR. Furthermore, the Dagum Gini coefficient, Kernel density estimation, the spatial autocorrelation model, and the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model are utilized to analyze the spatial–temporal evolution and influencing factors of CCD. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) During the study period, CCD shows an upward trend, but the value is relatively low. (2) There are significant spatial differences in CCD, and the inter-regional difference is the primary cause. (3) The regional differences in CCD are continuously widening. (4) CCD shows an obvious global spatial agglomeration feature, and the spatial agglomeration degree of CCD has been enhanced from 2012 to 2022. (5) The policy intensity, digital infrastructure, industrial structure, human capital, technological innovation, and market environment have significant impacts on CCD. The obtained findings provide important theoretical support for the coordinated development of DE and RE. Full article

Digital economy industrial agglomeration is significant for economic development and the realization of “dual carbon” goals. Based on the point of interest (POI) data of digital enterprises, this study uses kernel density estimation, a fixed-effect model, a spatial Durbin model, and other methods to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of digital industrial agglomeration in the four major urban clusters along the east coast of China and examines their corresponding influence on carbon emissions, including spatial spillover effects. The key conclusions are as follows: First, digital industry development and the degree of agglomeration display increasing trends. The degree of agglomeration is high in the east and low in the west, with high-value areas characterized by core prominence and orderly expansion. Second, a negative relationship is observed between digital industrial agglomeration and carbon emissions, with specialized agglomeration significantly reducing carbon emissions, while diversified agglomeration has a weaker effect. Third, the influence of digital industrial agglomeration on carbon emissions exhibits spatial spillover effects with heterogeneity. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the development of regional digital industry agglomeration and have significance as a reference for the formulation of energy conservation and carbon-reduction policies. Full article

Site selection is the key to carrying out the industrial layout of construction and demolition waste (CDW) resourcing enterprises. The current study needs more data on CDW industry location. The current construction waste resource utilization rate and industrial layout need to be improved. This study uses statistical and visualization methods to analyze key factors affecting the location of CDW recycling enterprises. Additionally, it identifies planning strategies and policy incentives to drive industry development. The study explicitly adopts global and weighted geographic regression (GWR) analysis methods and uses ArcGIS 10.8 to visualize point of interest (POI) data. It was found that (1) the main factors affecting the spatial distribution of the CDW recycling economy, in order of importance, are river network density, financial subsidies, R&D incentives, the number of building material markets, the value added by the secondary industry, the area of industrial land, and the density of the road network. The three main drivers of site selection decisions are government subsidies, market size, land, and transportation resources. (2) Enterprise industry chain and transportation costs are industrial economic decision-making considerations. Enterprises are generally located on flat terrain, around industrial parks, near the center of urban areas, and close to demand and cost reduction. (3) At the city level, there are more resource-based enterprises in cities with high levels of economic development and strong policy support. The spatial distribution of enterprises is consistent with the direction of urban geographic development. There is a positive global correlation between construction waste resourcing enterprises. Ningbo, western Qingdao, and northern Beijing show high aggregation characteristics. Low–low aggregation characteristics exist in regions other than central Chongqing. High–low aggregation characteristics are found in the center of the main city of Chongqing, eastern Shanghai, and central Nanjing. Low–high aggregation is distributed in northeastern Ningbo, northern Guangzhou, and southern Shenzhen. (4) Regarding industrial agglomeration, except for Nanjing, construction waste industrial agglomeration occurs in all 11 pilot cities. Among them, Shanghai, Xiamen, and Hangzhou have industries that are distributed evenly. Xi’an and Chongqing have a centralized distribution of industries. Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Ningbo, and Qingdao have multi-center clustering of industries. Nanning’s industry has a belt-shaped distribution. This research explores the micro elements of industry chain integration in the CDW industry. It combines incentive policies and urban planning at the macro level. Together, these efforts promote sustainable city construction. This research provides CDW location data and dates for future digital twin and city model algorithms. It supports industrial planning, transportation, spatial optimization, carbon emission analysis, city operations, and management and aims to enhance the city’s green and low-carbon operations. Full article

Using provincial panel data from China spanning 2011 to 2022, this paper analyzes the impact, mechanisms, and regional differences in digital trade’s effects on regional green innovation. It also explores the threshold effect between digital trade and green innovation, with environmental regulation serving as the threshold variable. The results indicate the following: first, after accounting for government intervention, foreign direct investment, human capital, industrialization, information technology infrastructure, and economic development, digital trade significantly promotes regional green innovation. This conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Second, digital trade promotes regional green innovation through three mechanisms: accelerating industrial structure upgrading, promoting industrial agglomeration, and enhancing technology transfer. Third, environmental regulation leads to a non-linear relationship between digital trade and green innovation. Higher levels of environmental regulation make digital trade’s contribution to green innovation more significant. Finally, the effects of digital trade on green innovation vary by region in China. This impact is more pronounced in eastern provinces, regions with advanced digital economies, areas with well-developed transport infrastructure, and provinces with a higher degree of trade openness. These findings hold substantial implications for advancing green innovation and promoting sustainable social development in China. Full article