Research on the Impact of Digital Economy on Pollution and Carbon Reduction in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration

The continuous augmentation of greenhouse gas and pollution emissions has exerted a conspicuous and negative influence on social production, economic development, and human health. As the digital economy continues to penetrate into various fields of social development, whether the advancement of the digital economy can promote urban pollution and carbon dioxide emission reduction has emerged as a pivotal topic of interest across all sectors of society. This study adopts empirical research methods to delve into the direct static, dynamic effects, spatial effects, and spatial spillover effects of the digital economy on pollution and carbon dioxide emission reduction in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA). As evidently suggested by the research findings, the digital economy has an inverted U-shaped impact on carbon dioxide and pollution emissions. As heterogeneity analysis reveals, this inverted U-shaped influence relationship exhibits heterogeneous effects in the high-level group and low-level group of digital economy development. The robustness of this conclusion was demonstrated through robustness testing. Mechanism analysis reveals that, in the early stage of digital development, infrastructure expansion serves as the primary channel driving emissions, whereas in the later stage, green technological progress becomes the key mechanism enabling emission reductions. Finally, the results confirms that digital economy has a significant negative spatial correlation effect on carbon dioxide and pollution emissions, and has an inverted U-shaped spatial spillover effect on neighboring regions.