Unleashing digital empowerment: Pioneering low-carbon development through the broadband China strategy

Low-carbon development has emerged as an imperative in the pursuit of carbon peak and neutrality. To this end, the intersection of digital empowerment and the quest for innovative solutions in developing countries has taken center stage, particularly in exploring the network infrastructure construction potential. This research delves into the intricate relationship between network infrastructure construction expansion and low-carbon development in developing countries, drawing insights from a comprehensive analysis of panel data collected from 282 Chinese cities. Leveraging the quasi-natural experiment presented by “Broadband China” and employing a rigorous multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model, our study uncovers significant findings. First, it reveals that the expansion of the network infrastructure construction directly amplifies the prospects of low-carbon development, a result consistently upheld through meticulous assessments of the multi-period DID approach and validation through the robust synthetic control DID method. Second, the study elucidates how network infrastructure construction expansion fosters low-carbon development by optimizing industrial structure and promoting investments in cutting-edge technologies. Third, it unveils the impact of network infrastructure construction expansion on the efficiency of low-carbon technology, concurrently encouraging its enhancement while imposing specific inhibitory effects. Remarkably, the policy outcomes exhibit variations among cities of differing sizes and between cities with old and non-old industrial bases. Finally, the research underscores the spatially endogenous interaction effects within low-carbon development. In sum, this study not only enriches comprehension of innovative avenues for low-carbon development within the sphere of digital empowerment but also provides empirical evidence to refine policy recommendations specifically tailored to the unique context of developing countries.