IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i18p13588-d1237678.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Digital Economy, Clean Energy Consumption, and High-Quality Economic Development: The Case of China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhong Ren

    (College of Economics, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China)

  • Jie Zhang

    (College of Economics, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China)

Abstract

The digital economy has become an important force driving China’s socio-economic development. From the perspective of sustainable energy development and based on China’s provincial panel data from 2011 to 2020, this paper probes into the relationship and transmission mechanism of digital economy, clean energy consumption, and high-quality economic development and utilizes the spatial Durbin model and intermediary effect model to carry out empirical tests on the paths of their influence. The results indicate that (1) the digital economy has a significant promoting effect and a positive spatial spillover effect on high-quality economic development, and its influence has obvious spatial heterogeneity; (2) the intermediary effect model validates that clean energy consumption is a mediating variable of digital economy and high-quality economy development, and its conduction effect also has obvious spatial heterogeneity. The research conclusions provide a new perspective and empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between digital economy and high-quality economic development as well as policy implications for the realization of digital transformation and low-carbon development goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhong Ren & Jie Zhang, 2023. "Digital Economy, Clean Energy Consumption, and High-Quality Economic Development: The Case of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-24, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:18:p:13588-:d:1237678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13588/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13588/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olena Ivus & Matthew Boland, 2015. "The employment and wage impact of broadband deployment in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(5), pages 1803-1830, December.
    2. Kangni Lyu & Shuwang Yang & Kun Zheng & Yao Zhang, 2023. "How Does the Digital Economy Affect Carbon Emission Efficiency? Evidence from Energy Consumption and Industrial Value Chain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-20, January.
    3. Chris Forman & Avi Goldfarb & Shane Greenstein, 2012. "The Internet and Local Wages: A Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 556-575, February.
    4. Wang, Lianghu & Shao, Jun, 2023. "Digital economy, entrepreneurship and energy efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    5. Cho, Youngsang & Lee, Jongsu & Kim, Tai-Yoo, 2007. "The impact of ICT investment and energy price on industrial electricity demand: Dynamic growth model approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 4730-4738, September.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2018. "The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1488-1542, June.
    7. Xia Yang & Meng Cui, 2022. "The Effect of Energy Consumption on China’s Regional Economic Growth from a Spatial Spillover Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Jorgenson, Dale W. & Motohashi, Kazuyuki, 2005. "Information technology and the Japanese economy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 460-481, December.
    9. Zhichun Yu & Yanjiao Wan, 2023. "Can the Growth of the Digital Economy Be Beneficial for Urban Decarbonization? A Study from Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-21, January.
    10. Sanjeev Dewan & Kenneth L. Kraemer, 2000. "Information Technology and Productivity: Evidence from Country-Level Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 548-562, April.
    11. Ur Rahman, Zia & Iqbal Khattak, Shoukat & Ahmad, Manzoor & Khan, Anwar, 2020. "A disaggregated-level analysis of the relationship among energy production, energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    12. Zhou, Xiaoyong & Zhou, Dequn & Wang, Qunwei & Su, Bin, 2019. "How information and communication technology drives carbon emissions: A sector-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 380-392.
    13. Xue, Yan & Tang, Chang & Wu, Haitao & Liu, Jianmin & Hao, Yu, 2022. "The emerging driving force of energy consumption in China: Does digital economy development matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    14. J. Paul Elhorst, 2014. "Matlab Software for Spatial Panels," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 37(3), pages 389-405, July.
    15. Lange, Steffen & Pohl, Johanna & Santarius, Tilman, 2020. "Digitalization and energy consumption. Does ICT reduce energy demand?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Lei & Chen, Yangyang & Ramsey, Thomas Stephen & Hewings, Geoffrey J.D., 2021. "Will researching digital technology really empower green development?," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Yu, Hongyang & Wang, Jinchao & Xu, Jiajun, 2023. "Assessing the role of digital economy agglomeration in energy conservation and emission reduction: Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    3. Niu, Meng & Wang, Zhenguo & Zhang, Yabin, 2022. "How information and communication technology drives (routine and non-routine) jobs: Structural path and decomposition analysis for China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1).
    4. Zhenzhen Liao & Shaofeng Ru & Yiyang Cheng, 2023. "A Simulation Study on the Impact of the Digital Economy on CO 2 Emission Based on the System Dynamics Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-24, February.
    5. Yu, Binbin, 2022. "The Impact of the Internet on Industrial Green Productivity: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    6. Shuming Ren & Lianqing Li & Yueqi Han & Yu Hao & Haitao Wu, 2022. "The emerging driving force of inclusive green growth: Does digital economy agglomeration work?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1656-1678, May.
    7. Kunkel, S. & Neuhäusler, P. & Matthess, M. & Dachrodt, M.F., 2023. "Industry 4.0 and energy in manufacturing sectors in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    8. Junhong Qu & Xiaoli Hao, 2022. "Digital Economy, Financial Development, and Energy Poverty Based on Mediating Effects and a Spatial Autocorrelation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, July.
    9. Shunbin Zhong & Huafu Shen & Ziheng Niu & Yang Yu & Lin Pan & Yaojun Fan & Atif Jahanger, 2022. "Moving towards Environmental Sustainability: Can Digital Economy Reduce Environmental Degradation in China?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-23, November.
    10. Rongwu Zhang & Wenqiang Fu & Yingxu Kuang, 2022. "Can Digital Economy Promote Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in Heavily Polluting Enterprises? Empirical Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Ronald Kumar, 2014. "Exploring the role of technology, tourism and financial development: an empirical study of Vietnam," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2881-2898, September.
    12. Prasanna Tambe & Lorin M. Hitt, 2014. "Job Hopping, Information Technology Spillovers, and Productivity Growth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(2), pages 338-355, February.
    13. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Stocker, Volker, 2020. "Bedeutung digitaler Infrastrukturen und Dienste und Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Resilienz in Krisenzeiten," Policy Notes 42, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Yang Liu & Yanlin Yang & Huihui Li & Kaiyang Zhong, 2022. "Digital Economy Development, Industrial Structure Upgrading and Green Total Factor Productivity: Empirical Evidence from China’s Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-23, February.
    15. Usman, Ahmed & Ozturk, Ilhan & Ullah, Sana & Hassan, Ali, 2021. "Does ICT have symmetric or asymmetric effects on CO2 emissions? Evidence from selected Asian economies," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Prasanna Tambe, 2014. "Big Data Investment, Skills, and Firm Value," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1452-1469, June.
    17. Lei-Ju Qiu & Shun-Bin Zhong & Bao-Wen Sun & Yu Song & Xiao-Hua Chen, 2021. "Is internet penetration narrowing the rural–urban income inequality? A cross-regional study of China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(5), pages 1795-1814, October.
    18. Du, Juntao & Shen, Zhiyang & Song, Malin & Zhang, Linda, 2023. "Nexus between digital transformation and energy technology innovation: An empirical test of A-share listed enterprises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    19. Zhiguang ZHANG & Haiqing HU & Winston T. LIN, 2019. "Analyzing the Impacts of Unobserved National Characteristics on Economic Performance of Information Technology based on a Partial Adjustment Approach With Dynamic and Variable Speed of Adjustment," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 128-142, March.
    20. Guoge Yang & Feng Deng & Yifei Wang & Xianhong Xiang, 2022. "Digital Paradox: Platform Economy and High-Quality Economic Development—New Evidence from Provincial Panel Data in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:18:p:13588-:d:1237678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.