190 / 2024-02-27 11:25:20

The pollution and carbon reduction effects of digital trade development——Quasi-natural experiments based on the comprehensive pilot zone of cross-border e-commerce

Digital trade; Cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone; Reduce pollution and carbon; Progressive DID model

  Under the new development pattern, it is very important to effectively rely on digital trade, a new trade revolution, to drive pollution reduction and carbon reduction. On the basis of systematically explaining the internal mechanism of digital trade synergy to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, based on the panel data of 270 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2021, the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone is used as a quasi-natural experiment and the progressive difference-in-difference model is empirically analyzed. The results show that: (i) digital trade can not only significantly reduce carbon emissions, but also effectively reduce environmental pollution, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of endogenous and robust tests; (ii) Digital trade can not only directly achieve coordinated pollution reduction and carbon reduction, but also indirectly empower the promotion of pollution reduction and carbon reduction through industrial upgrading, energy efficiency improvement and green innovation. (iii) The pollution and carbon reduction effects of digital trade development show obvious heterogeneous characteristics, and this positive effect is more obvious in non-resource-based cities, regions with high financial development level, and central and western regions. This paper provides important enlightenment for the country to accelerate the coordinated development of the "dual carbon" strategy and the digital China strategy.