Does the development of digital economy alleviate environmental problems-empirical evidence from the Yangtze River economic belt

The digital economy has become a new driving force for economic development. This paper takes 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt as research objects, constructs comprehensive evaluation indicators of environmental problems and digital economy, uses panel data of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2011 to 2020, and applies various econometric models to empirically test the impact of digital economy development on environmental problems in multiple dimensions. It was found that the development of the digital economy in the Yangtze River Economic Belt significantly mitigates environmental problems, a conclusion that still holds after the robustness analysis. The mediation analysis indicates that the development of the digital economy mitigates environmental problems through industrial structural upgrading and green technology innovation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the digital economy development in the downstream areas of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has the largest environmental improvement effect and the smallest in the midstream areas. Spatial spillover analysis shows that digital economy development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt has significantly reduced environmental problems in surrounding areas through spatial spillover effects. The findings of the study provide empirical evidence that the development of the digital economy can mitigate environmental problems, and also serve as a policy reference for developing the digital economy and bringing the environmental improvement role of the digital economy into play.