Unleashing the power of informatization: How does the "information benefiting people" policy affect green total factor productivity?

Does digital government reduce carbon emissions? Empirical evidence from global sources

Carbon emissions have become a common concern of the international community. We investigate the stage differences in the impact of digital government on carbon emissions from a life cycle perspective of digital government development through nonlinear modeling based on data from 159 countries from 2003 to 2022. Our research found that: (1) Digital government has a non-linear effect on carbon emissions in an inverted "U" shape of "first promote and then inhibit", with an inflection point value of 0.328. Digital government can significantly inhibit carbon emissions when it exceeds the inflection point value. Mechanism analysis shows that digital government has a suppressing effect on carbon emissions by improving government efficiency, government regulatory quality, and business environment. In addition, this inverted "U" relationship is more pronounced in developed countries and countries with outward-looking economies. (2) Among the components of digital government, information infrastructure and online services are the key drivers of this inverted "U" relationship. Threshold analysis shows that when the information infrastructure index exceeds 0.437 or the online service index exceeds 0.606, the digital government shows a significant inhibition of carbon emissions. (3) Moderation analysis shows that energy consumption structure, employment structure, and e-participation of residents negatively moderated the inverted U-shaped relationship between digital government and carbon emissions, and they flattened the original inverted U-shaped curve. We then make some policy recommendations for different types of countries in their efforts to sustainably scale up government.

Can digital governance promote urban energy conservation and emission reduction? A quasi-natural experiment based on "National Pilot Policy of Information Benefiting the People" in China

The digital transformation of government is an important path to achieve the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. In recent years, the "National Pilot Policy of Information Benefiting the People" has become a key measure for big data to empower government governance, accelerate the improvement of public service levels and equalization of public services. This paper adopts the difference-in-difference method, takes the "National Pilot Policy of Information Benefiting the People" implemented in my country in 2014 as a quasi-natural experiment of digital governance, and explores the effectiveness of government digital governance measures on urban energy conservation and emission reduction and its potential transmission mechanism based on panel data of 283 cities in China from 2006 to 2021. The study found that the construction of digital government has a positive role in promoting urban energy conservation and emission reduction, and this positive impact is mainly achieved by promoting green technology innovation and strengthening environmental regulation; there are differences in the impact of digital governance on urban energy conservation and emission reduction among cities of different regions, different scales, and different resource endowments. This paper studies the energy conservation and emission reduction effect of government governance from the perspective of digital transformation, and provides important empirical inspiration for the sustainable development of cities under the dual carbon goals and the formulation of energy conservation and emission reduction action strategies.

Institutional ownership drives a new strategy for green total factor productivity development of Chinese listed companies: Effects, mechanisms, and implications

The low-carbon transformation of China's economy is urgent, and the innovation of core technologies related to it cannot be without financial support. Given the limited availability of green funding, it is imperative to seek the help of social funding more widely. Among them, the impact of institutional ownership (IO) on the green total factor productivity (GTFP) at micro level cannot be ignored. This study employs a panel fixed-effects model to examine the influence of IO on the GTFP of 4582 Chinese A-share listed companies and explore potential pathways. The research findings indicate that: (1) IO can improve the GTFP of investee companies. (2) this impact may occur through the influence of IO on the invested company's financing constraints, R&D expenditures, green innovation, environmental performance, ultimately driving its GTFP. (3) different types of institutional investors exhibit varying performance in promoting the GTFP of the invested company. Particularly, pressure-sensitive institutional investors with strong business relevance to the invested companies demonstrate impressive results. (4) IO exhibits a more significant promoting effect on the GTFP of listed companies in specific samples. This study provides a new strategy for promoting green economic growth in China, and summarizes some targeted policy implications.

Fostering green technology innovation with green credit: Evidence from spatial quantile approach

Green technology is an important path to achieve low-carbon development, and green credit provides financial support for green technology innovation. Existing literature often fails to pay attention to the important role of spatial factors and outliers in green technology innovation. Based on 2005-2022 provincial panel data in China, this paper uses a novel spatial lag quantile model to explore the impact of green credit on green technology innovation and its impact mechanism. The empirical results indicate that green credit exerts a greater positive impact on green technology in the provinces with moderate technical level. Technological innovation has the characteristic of spatial spillover. The spatial spillover of technology contributes more to green technology innovation in the provinces with low- and medium-tech level. This result has been proven even after robustness test of the changes in sample units, and the replacement of core variable values. Further mechanistic analysis demonstrates that banking market structure and enterprise R&D investment both produces the greater impact on green technology innovation in the low-tech provinces such as Qinghai, Ningxia, and Hainan. This article provides policy reference for local governments to formulate green finance policies and promote carbon neutrality strategies.

Digital governance and carbon emission reduction: Evidence from "National Pilot Policy of Information Benefiting the People" in China

Promoting digital governance is crucial for the Chinese government's governance reform. This study utilizes panel data covering 280 cities in China to examine the influence of government digital governance on reducing carbon emissions. The "National Pilot Policy of Information Benefiting the People," implemented in 2014, serves as the quasi-natural experiment for the analysis. The study employs the difference-in-difference (DID) methodology to indicate that improving the government's digital capacity contributes to reducing carbon emissions, which is robust to several robustness tests. Government digital governance facilitates the reduction of carbon emissions primarily via three mechanisms: developing green finance, gathering green talents, and promoting green technology innovation. Enhanced digital governance by the government exerts a more pronounced effect on reducing carbon emissions in cities in the eastern region, smaller municipalities, and resource-dependent municipalities. Additionally, current policies have notably decreased carbon emissions in the pilot cities, though a lag exists in the policy spillover effect affecting neighboring cities. This study investigates the influence of government digital governance on reducing carbon emissions through the lens of digital transformation. It offers valuable empirical insights for enhancing the governance capabilities of the Chinese government in the new era and facilitating the achievement of carbon reduction targets in urban areas.

A pathway to sustainable development in China: The impact of local higher education expenditure on green total factor productivity

With the global warming crisis looming, the question of how to advance green total factor productivity (GTFP) has become an important concern confronting many developing countries. Although existing studies have demonstrated that total human capital can improve GTFP, the research has neglected to consider the influence of local higher education expenditure (LHEE), and no research has examined how LHEE spatially affect GTFP. Therefore, based on spatial economics theory, this study explores the spatial autocorrelation of LHEE and GTFP in China's 30 provinces from 2004 to 2021, employing a spatial Durbin model to analyze the spillover effect and influence mechanism of LHEE on GTFP. The results reveal that LHEE and GTFP exhibit positive global spatial autocorrelation. LHEE primarily improves GTFP and its subcomponents through spillover effects. The positive spillover effects in the three regions of China are significantly higher than the direct effects, whereas the direct effects in the eastern and central regions are positive but insignificant. Furthermore, LHEE promotes GTFP by advancing green technological innovation. The findings provide valuable insights to help policymakers address sustainable development goal 4 and develop synergistic regional GTFP growth policies to establish sustainable societies worldwide.

Can PM2.5 concentration reduced by China's environmental protection tax?

The responsibility of enhancing environmental quality is shouldered by China's Environmental Protection Tax (EPT), which constitutes a vital element of China's tax system greening initiative. Using the difference-in-differences (DID) method, the effects of the EPT on PM2.5 concentration were empirically examined in this study, through panel data of 218 cities in China from 2015 to 2021. The results indicate that the EPT can effectively reduce PM2.5 concentration by approximately 2.4 %, and this conclusion remained unchanged after a series of robustness tests. In the channel analysis, it can be found that the reduction of PM2.5 concentration by the EPT was achieved through the alleviation of financing constraints, technological advancements, and optimization of industrial structure. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the negative impact of the EPT on PM2.5 concentration was more significant in northern cities, inland cities and non-national environmental protection model cities. Further analysis found that EPT has a stronger inhibitory effect on PM2.5 concentration within 100 % of tax increase. The conclusions remain consistent when spatial spillover effects of PM2.5 are taken into account. This paper provides important empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of emission reductions of EPT and provides valuable insights for the future improvement of EPT.

The moderate level of digital transformation: from the perspective of green total factor productivity

In the context of accelerated development of the digital economy, whether enterprises can drive green total factor productivity (GTFP) through digital technology has become the key to promoting high-quality development of the economy and achieving the goal of "dual-carbon", However, the relationship between digital transformation and GTFP is still controversial in existing studies. Based on the data of 150 listed companies in China's A-share energy industry from 2011 to 2021, this study empirically analyzes the impact of digital transformation on GTFP using a fixed-effect model. The study shows an inverted U-shaped nonlinear effect of digital transformation on enterprises' GTFP, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis shows that enterprise investment efficiency and labour allocation efficiency play a significant mediating role in the above inverted U-shaped relationship, in which the inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and GTFP mainly stems from the influence of enterprise investment efficiency. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and GTFP of enterprises is more significant in large-scale enterprises, new energy enterprises and enterprises in central and western regions. The study's findings provide important insights for enterprises to promote digital transformation and realize the green and high-quality development of the energy industry.

Does smart city pilot improve green total factor productivity? Evidence from Chinese cities

In recent years, the construction of smart cities has gradually become an effective means of addressing urban economic and environmental challenges. Based on panel data of 249 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2020, this study uses a super-efficiency epsilon-based measure model and a Malmquist-Luenberger index to calculate the urban green total factor productivity (GTFP). Using the smart city pilot as a quasi-natural experiment, the time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) method is applied to determine the causal effect of smart city pilot on GTFP. Results show that smart city pilot increases urban GTFP in China, and a series of robust analyses have verified the reliability of the results. The heterogeneity analysis results show that the smart city pilot policy has a more significant positive effect on urban GTFP in the eastern and central regions, the high population group, and the high per capita GDP group. The mediating analysis further suggests that smart city pilot positively affects technological innovations and human capital which promotes urban GTFP. These findings are of great significance for smart city construction and coordinating the relationship between urban economic development and environmental protection.

Revisiting the porter hypothesis within the economy-environment-health framework: Empirical analysis from a multidimensional perspective

The question of whether environmental regulation fosters technological innovation and green development, as a nuanced extension of the Porter hypothesis, constitutes a focal point in contemporary research. Despite this attention, the literature often omits a multifaceted evaluation framework for green development and fails to consider multiaspectual environmental regulation and technological innovation. This study develops a comprehensive model of green total factor productivity (GTFP), situating the Chinese economy within an economy-environment-health nexus. The extended Crépon-Dugeut-Mairesse model is employed to revisit the "strong", "weak", and "narrow" Porter hypotheses. The analysis reveals that formal environmental regulation exerts a crowding-out effect on research and development (R&D), whereas informal environmental regulation exhibits a facilitating effect, corroborating the narrow version of the Porter hypothesis. Both categories of regulation contribute to substantial innovation. Following the incorporation of R&D factors, heterogeneity in the "weak" Porter hypothesis emerges in the Chinese context, contingent upon specific types of environmental regulation and technological innovation. Environmental regulation positively influences GTFP, affirming the "strong" Porter hypothesis, primarily through the vector of technical progress change. A developmental trajectory to enhance GTFP is thus articulated: judicious environmental regulation leads to R&D, which in turn fosters innovation quality, subsequently affecting the technical progress change index and ultimately GTFP. Correspondingly, policy recommendations are delineated across three dimensions: judicious environmental regulation, targeted innovation support, and regional coordination.

Horizontal ecological compensation mechanism and green low-carbon development in river basins: evidence from Xin'an River basin

The Basin Horizontal Ecological Compensation Mechanism (BHEC) is a significant institutional innovation in China's water environment management, aimed at achieving green, low-carbon, and high-quality development in the basin. This paper examines the current status of the spatial association network of green low-carbon development in Xin'an River basin, using social network analysis based on data from prefecture-level cities between 2006 and 2019. Using a dual difference model, the paper explores the important role of BHEC in promoting green low-carbon development from the perspectives of production and consumption and analyzes the path of BHEC's promotion of green low-carbon development in detail. The results indicate that (1) the green low-carbon development in the Xin'an River basin is universally connected in space, but this connection is uneven among the cities in the basin, presenting a network spatial structure with the central region as the core and the north and south regions approaching the core. (2) BHEC contributes to green low-carbon development, and the "two-wheel drive" of green technology progress and green technology efficiency is essential to improve green low-carbon development. (3) From the perspective of consumption affecting green low-carbon development, the positive impact of BHEC on green low-carbon development is inseparable from the synergistic guarantee of public participation. (4) From the production side of green low-carbon development, the ecological effect, structural effect, and technological effect are significant transmission factors of compensation policies affecting green low-carbon development. (5) The "blood transfusion" pilot policy is more helpful to improve green low-carbon development, and compensation policy has positive spillover effects. Finally, the paper argues that the trans-basin ecological compensation policy is expected to become a long-term mechanism to promote green low-carbon and high-quality development in the basin, providing a theoretical and practical basis for developing countries to achieve green low-carbon development through an ecological compensation system.