Research On The Impact Of Digital Economy On Green Total Factor Productivity

The Chinese economy has begun to shift from a stage of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development.It is now in an important strategic and critical period of development,and needs to inject new drivers of growth.The long-term extensive economic growth model,ignoring the cost of environmental pollution in the process of development,may reduce the quality of China’s economic development.Hence,the long-term sustainable development compatible with economic growth and environmental protection has become a social consensus.Digital economy,as a new economic form,is increasingly integrated into the whole process of different fields in the society,providing an effective way to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries,and continuously develop towards intelligent,high-end and green direction.Especially under the impact of the COVID-19,digital economy has been a new engine and strategic choice for green development,and green total factor productivity measured by considering environmental factors may become the key to high-quality development,providing important support for promoting the qualitative and effective improvement and reasonable growth of China’s economy.In addition,the Chinese government has frequently mentioned the strategic deployment of digital economy and green development and put forward clear requirements in important conferences and economic development plans in recent years,making it important directions to lead the structural transformation of economy in the future.Hence,does the digital economy improve green total factor productivity? If the driving effect is confirmed,what is the theoretical explanation for the impact of digital economy on green total factor productivity? What are the underlying mechanisms? Moreover,the foothold of the development of digital economy lies in the digital transformation of enterprises,can the micro effect ofgreen total factor productivity of digital enabling enterprises be verified at the micro level? By studying these issues that need to be solved in the process of Chinese-style modernization,it is helpful to deepen the understanding of the relationship between digital economy and green total factor productivity,and also has important practical significance to give full play to the green value of digital economy,which can help to realize the goal of "double carbon" and promote the high-quality development of economy in China.Therefore,this paper closely follows the historical background,combs domestic and foreign relevant research literature on digital economy and green total factor productivity,and carries out in-depth research on its macro and micro effects from the three parts,including statistical measurement,theoretical elaboration and empirical analysis.Specifically,the content of the paper is as follows: First,statistical measurement.Combined with the research purposes and research needs,this paper makes a statistical measurement of China’s urban digital economy and green total factor productivity at the macro level,and firms’ digital transformation and green total factor productivity at the micro level.Second,theoretical elaboration.Digital economy is a new economic form with data resources as the key elements.This paper attempts to embed data factors and environmental pollution problems under the framework of endogenous economic growth model,explore the theoretical model and mathematical derivation of the impact of digital economy with data factors as the core on green total factor productivity,and provide a necessary theoretical basis for the study of the relationship.In addition,this paper also theoretically explored its macro and micro mechanisms,providing necessary theoretical explanations for the study of the influence path of the relationship between the two,so as to provide empirical evidence for the adoption of scientific and reasonable digital economy development strategies and the promotion of urban green total factor productivity.Third,empirical analysis.Under the unified research framework,this paper empirically examines the digital economy’s impact on green total factor productivity.On the one hand,at the macro city level,this paper conducts in-depth discussion and research from several aspects,such as benchmark analysis,mechanism test,nonlinear relationship investigation,heterogeneity analysis and spatial spillover effect.Based on the decomposition of digital economy and green total factor productivity,this paper further discusses the influence of different components of digital economy on green total factor productivity and its decomposition findings,providing an explanation for the difference of contribution sources of digital economy development on green total factor productivity.In addition,this paper also examines the impact of exogenous policy impacts on urban green total factor productivity,that is,taking China’s “smart city” pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment to study its possible green effects,so as to provide support for the robustness of the results.On the other hand,at the micro enterprise level,this paper provides a research framework of “benchmark analysis-mechanism path identification-heterogeneity test-regulatory effect analysis”,and further divides the green total factor productivity at the enterprise level into green technology progress and green technology efficiency.To investigate the differences between the effects of digital transformation on different decomposition results of enterprise green total factor productivity and the mechanism test,and deepen the understanding of the complete chain of relationship and the holistic cognition.In addition,this paper tests whether there is a nonlinear relationship between digital transformation and enterprise green total factor productivity by introducing quadratic term and cubic term or adopting semi-parametric method,so as to have a deep insight into the microscopic effect of digitalization on enhancing green total factor productivity.Hence,we can obtain the findings of this paper based on the above analysis:Firstly,we have adopted the framework of multi-source data integration,such as structured and unstructured data,the development level of urban digital economy in China is comprehensively measured,in order to investigate its characteristics and regional differences in a more detailed way.We find that:(1)The development level of digital economy in Chinese cities grew steadily from2011 to 2020,while the national level showed a trend of stage-type and leapfrog steady growth,but the characteristics of regional differences and differentiation were obvious.The development of digital economy in eastern and southern cities is in an absolute dominant position,while the development level of digital economy in central and western cities,northern cities and northeastern cities is relatively low.There is a big difference in the development level of digital economy between regions east and west of the “Hu Huanyong Line”.The development level of digital economy in the east of the line is obviously better than that in the west of the line.However,cities in the west of the “Hu Huanyong Line” have given full play to their comparative advantages and made important contributions to the growth of digital economy since 2017.(2)From the perspective of urban agglomerations,the average annual growth rate of digital economy development level of the ten main urban agglomerations is relatively high.The Pearl River Delta(PRD),Yangtze River Delta(YRD)and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomerations rank first in absolute value of digital economy development level,but the growth rate is lower than Guanzhong urban agglomerations and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomerations.In addition,the development level of digital economy of coastal urban agglomerations is greater than that of inland urban agglomerations,and the development level of digital economy of important cities is dominant and leading within urban agglomerations.(3)From the perspective of urban digital economy competitiveness,cities with higher development level of digital economy are mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern regions,while cities with lower ranking are mostly concentrated in the northern and central and western regions.(4)From the decomposition of components,from the national perspective,the contribution of industrial digital integration is the largest among the components of the development level of digital economy;From the perspective of different regions,there is obvious regional heterogeneity in the proportion of different factors.The eastern region accounts for the largest proportion of industrial digital integration development,but the central and western region’s digital government index is higher than the national average level,and the dividend of digital government has been released.From the perspective of structural decomposition by stages,the contribution of different components to the development of digital economy has been dynamically adjusted.Industrial digital integration development elements in the “12th Five-Year” and “13th Five-Year” period of the highest contribution to the development of digital economy,but in the “13th Five-Year” period of digital government elements on digital economy significantly prominent effect.Secondly,according to the dynamic evolution characteristics of urban digital economy development in China,it can be found that:(1)the overall Gini coefficient of digital economy has obvious stage characteristics,with a increasing-decreasing trend.The Gini coefficient within the region is the highest in eastern China and the lower in central and western China,but the stage differentiation is obvious and shows regional heterogeneity.For the regional differences,the inter-regional Gini coefficient of urban digital economy development level in China shows an obvious trend of fluctuation decline,and the Gini coefficient between eastern and western regions is the largest.(2)From the perspective of difference sources,except for the slight increase in the Gini coefficient of super-variable density from 2016 to 2017,the sources of different differences in other years also showed a same trend,especially the inter-regional,super-variable density and intra-regional Gini coefficient are all in a downward trend since 2016.Moreover,the contribution rate of inter-regional Gini coefficient to the total is 44.266%,indicating that the inter-regional gap is the main source.(3)The development level of digital economy in Chinese cities is in a dynamic process from a low level to a high level.The overall difference of digital economy level in China and western regions has little change,but the difference between cities in eastern regions gradually increases,and the difference in central regions decreases.Thirdly,the most fundamental feature of the digital economy is that data can be operated as a key element,this paper tries to embed data elements and environmental pollution into the classical endogenous economic growth framework,and constructs a five-sector economic growth model,including environmental sector,data sector,R&D sector,intermediate goods sector and final goods production sector,so as to study its steady-state equilibrium path.The results show that data factors can promote green total factor productivity in both the final product production sector and the R&D sector,and data factors can inhibit the emission level of environmental pollution in the environmental sector,so that the optimal growth path of environmental governance and green development can be achieved.This scenario is in line with the actual situation of China’s current economic development,providing the theoretical basis and reasonable explanation for the internal logic that digital economy with data elements can effectively promote green total factor productivity.Fourthly,from a macro perspective,this paper empirically tests and in-depth studies the effects of digital economy on urban green total factor productivity,and finds that:(1)Digital economy can significantly improve urban green total factor productivity.After the robustness test,such as the introduction of instrumental variables and the adoption of “smart city” pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment,this conclusion remains valid.(2)Using the panel threshold model,it is found that digital economy has a positive and significant nonlinear feature on the national urban green total factor productivity,but the marginal effect is decreasing.Further investigation reveals the phenomenon of “digital divide”between regions.The “digital dividend” of green total factor productivity of digitally enabled cities has been released in the eastern region,but has not been promoted to a higher level in the central,western and northeastern cities.(3)Heterogeneity test results show that the factor endowment of eastern cities,northern cities,key urban agglomerations,high-level cities,non-resource-based cities,cities in carbon trading pilot areas,and cities with high environmental regulation level have obvious “first-mover advantages”,which makes the enhancement effect more significant.(4)The spatial spillover effect of digital economy on urban green total factor productivity has been confirmed,that is,the development of digital economy cannot only effectively improve the regional green total factor productivity,but also the development of digital economy in neighboring regions is conducive to improving the regional green total factor productivity.(5)Based on the decomposition of urban digital economy development and green total factor productivity,it can be known that urban digital sustainable development and industrial digital integrated development factors can better drive the improvement of green total factor productivity,but the impact of digital infrastructure,digital industrialization and digital government factors on green total factor productivity is not obvious.In addition,the contribution of digital economy to urban green total factor productivity is mainly reflected in the level of enabling green technology progress,but has no enhancement effect on green technology efficiency,and digital sustainable development,industrial digital integrated development and digital government elements have stronger effect on green technology progress.Fifthly,from the micro perspective,this paper investigates the relationship between digital transformation and green total factor productivity of enterprises.The results show that:(1)Digital transformation significantly improves the level of green total factor productivity,and the contribution of digital transformation to the improvement of green total factor productivity of enterprises is mainly due to green technology efficiency,rather than green technology progress.(2)Based on the differences of external macro environment and internal micro characteristics of enterprises,this paper finds that the driving effect of digital transformation on green total factor productivity is mainly reflected in central and eastern regions,southern regions,Yangtze River Economic Belt and areas with good air quality.The role of digital enabling green total factor productivity in non-state-owned enterprises,enterprises without external audit reservations,polluting enterprises and high-tech enterprises is also more obvious.(3)Factors such as environmental responsibility performance,environmental regulation intensity,exogenous policy impact and firms’ perception of uncertainty have moderating effects on the relationship between green total factor productivity of enterprises empowered by digital transformation,and environmental responsibility performance and environmental regulation intensity have stronger spillover effects on green total factor productivity of enterprises empowered by digital transformation.(4)After the quadratic and cubic terms of digital transformation were added and the semi-parametric model was used to test the relationship between digital transformation and green total factor productivit,a relatively obvious nonlinear relationship was found,that is,digital transformation has an “inverted U-shaped”relationship with green total factor productivity and green technology efficiency of enterprises.The influence on enterprises’ green technology progress presents“N-shaped” characteristics,which provides a new way to play the green governance effect of digital transformation.Sixthly,from the perspective of macro and micro mechanisms of digital economy affecting green total factor productivity,we can get:(1)Through macro city data,this paper finds that digital economy mainly drives the significant improvement of urban green total factor productivity by promoting industrial structure optimization and upgrading,green technology innovation and public environmental cognition ability.(2)Based on micro enterprise data,this paper verifies that digital transformation can promote the improvement of green total factor productivity of enterprises through three channels: strengthening enterprises’ green technology innovation ability,improving ESG performance and promoting factor allocation efficiency,so as to enable enterprises to transform green and low-carbon mode.This can provide empirical evidence and policy enlightenment at macro and micro levels for digital economy to enable high-quality economic development and green low-carbon transition.Under the core theme of digital economy development and green total factor productivity,this paper combined with existing literature and summarized the possible innovation points mainly reflected in the following aspects: Firstly,from the perspective of data use and statistical measurement,this paper comprehensively identifies multi-source data such as structured data,generalized network text data and theoretical measurement data,and strengthens the integration and utilization of non-uniform data such as different data frequencies and data structures,so as to measure the development level index of urban digital economy based on the multi-source heterogeneous data fusion framework.A more objective evaluation of the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of urban digital economy in China has deepened the understanding and provided a new perspective for the measurement research of digital economy.Secondly,from the perspective of theoretical explanation,whether the digital economy with data factors as the core can become the new driving force for the improvement of green total factor productivity remains to be studied.This paper attempts to embed data factors and environmental pollution in the framework of endogenous economic growth model,and theoretically explore the direct driving mechanisms of digital economy on green total factor productivity,providing a necessary theoretical basis for the study of its relationship.Thirdly,from the perspective of research,this paper not only focuses on the macro effect of green total factor productivity enhancement enabled by digital economy,but also conducts an in-depth investigation and verification on the micro effect of how digital transformation promotes green total factor productivity of enterprises,thus providing support for the validity of the results and offering a experience for other emerging economies to improve green total factor productivity.