| In the strategic context of rapid development of digital economy and orderly promotion of "double carbon" target,digital economy,as an important assistant in the transformation and upgrading of cities,opens up new channels for environmental governance and energy conservation and emission reduction by accelerating the flow of resource elements and promoting industry integration,and provides a new path for mitigating urban carbon emissions.At present,many industries are facing strong double shocks and perturbations from the global environment and the new crown epidemic,and the operational resistance is escalating again and again.Resilience is a key perspective worth considering,and it is of great theoretical and practical importance to explore the carbon reduction effect of digital economy development from the dimension of resilience.Based on theories such as resource base,new economic geography and digital economy,this paper firstly,measures the digital economy development level of 277prefecture-level cities in China from 2011-2019 using the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method;secondly,decomposes the sources of spatial disparity in urban digital economy development using the Dagum Gini coefficient;again,uses the kernel density estimation method to explore the national and three major regional digital economy development levels Finally,the effect of urban digital economy on reducing carbon emissions and its impact mechanism are explored from the perspective of resilience.The results show that:(1)China’s current digital economy development level shows a spatial convergence and balanced development trend,with the gap within the East and West and the gap between regions decreasing,and the difference between regions showing "(East-West)>(East-Central)>(East-Central)>(East-Central)>(East-Central)>(Central-West)",and the contribution of interregional disparities is the main cause of spatial disparities in the digital economy.(2)The results of the core density estimation show that,overall,the level of development of the digital economy in all regions of the country has gradually increased between 2011 and 2019,but the gap in each region is gradually widening.The digital economy in the eastern region shows a positive growth trend,but the internal gap is increasing year by year,with obvious multipolar characteristics;the level of digital economy development in central and western cities has been increasing year by year,with the internal gap gradually widening and the proportion of high-level prefecture-level cities in the central region being the lowest.(3)The baseline regression results show that digital economy development has the effect of significantly reducing carbon emissions in urban areas,and these conclusions still hold after many robustness tests.The mechanism of action results suggest that:(4)The digital economy has a carbon-reducing effect only on non-old industrial base cities,cities with high level of digital economy development,low-carbon pilot cities and carbon emission trading pilot cities,non-resource-based cities,and eastern cities.(5)The digital economy exerts its carbon reduction effect through two intermediary bridges:industry chain resilience and city resilience.As the manufacturing value chain climbs,the carbon reduction ability of the digital economy influencing cities through industry chain resilience and urban resilience will be further enhanced.The findings provide useful evidence and support for the digital economy’s carbon reduction function in cities from the perspectives of enhancing industry chain resilience,city resilience and value chain.The above findings have the following policy implications:(1)Based on regional development differences,implement differentiated governance strategies.(2)Deepen the development of digital economy and increase capital investment.(3)Pay attention to chain resilience enhancement and promote digital empowerment to reduce emissions.(4)Find the right positioning for urban development and bridge the digital divide phenomenon. |
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