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eISSN: 2083-5906
ISSN: 1230-1485
ISSN: 1230-1485
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Digital Economy, Environmental Regulation
and Urban Green Development- A Study Based
on 282 Prefecture-Level Cities in China
1
College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang321100;
No. 666 Changhui Road, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China
Submission date: 2023-11-03
Final revision date: 2024-02-11
Acceptance date: 2024-03-12
Online publication date: 2024-05-20
Publication date: 2025-01-02
Corresponding author
Hao Zhang
College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang321100; No. 666 Changhui Road, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China
College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang321100; No. 666 Changhui Road, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2025;34(1):431-446
KEYWORDS
digital economyenvironmental regulationgreen developmentupgrading of industrial structureurban heterogeneity
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The booming digital economy has injected new momentum into the high-quality development of
China’s economy. This paper empirically examines the impact of the digital economy and environmental
regulation on green development in China by using the SBM-GML model to measure the level of
green development in Chinese cities using data from 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011-
2019 and explains the mechanism of the digital economy and environmental regulation on the green
development of cities. The results show that the digital economy significantly improves the level of green
development in Chinese cities and plays a positive moderating role in the process of environmental
regulation to improve the level of green development in Chinese cities. Industrial structure upgrading is
an important mediator of the digital economy and environmental regulation in empowering green total
factor productivity; in terms of heterogeneity, both the digital economy and environmental regulation
significantly increase the level of green development in cities in southern China and resource-based
cities. In contrast, the digital economy and environmental regulation are the main drivers for non-digital
economy pilot cities and non-resource cities, respectively.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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