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Towards high-quality development: how does digital economy impact low-carbon inclusive development?: mechanism and path

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Abstract

High-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-around way. Innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing are the main connotations of high-quality development. Based on panel data from 286 cities in China, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of the digital economy on low-carbon inclusive development (hereinafter referred to as LIG). The results show that the digital economy has a salient promoting effect on LIG, and with the increase of quantile level, the promoting effect shows a marginal decreasing trend. Heterogeneity analysis found that the cities with low resource dependence and marketization of the digital economy and high environmental concern and competition have more salient promoting effects on LIG. The dimensionality reduction analysis shows that the impact of digital economy on economic growth, social inclusion, and low-carbon ecology gradually increases in turn. The mechanism test shows that R&D investment, green innovation, and market integration play a partial mediating role, while entrepreneurial activity, industrial upgrading, and development imbalance play a fully mediating role. Digital economy promotes urban economic growth and low-carbon ecological development through R&D investment and market integration and mainly promotes low-carbon ecological development through green innovation. The digital economy will promote low-carbon and inclusive urban development by stimulating entrepreneurship, promoting industrial upgrading, and alleviating development imbalances.

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Notes

  1. Source: Cyberspace Administration of China: http://www.cac.gov.cn/

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Funding

The General Project of National Social Science Fund:“Research on the path of ‘Industrial Aid to Xinjiang’ in the problem of Regional Coordinated Development Mechanism” (18BJL083) and General Project of Social Science Foundation of Autonomous region: “Research on the Construction of Modern Industrial System in Xinjiang” (21BJL038). Innovation Project in Xinjiang Autonomous region: “The influence of Digital economy on High-quality Economic Development and its coping Strategy” (XJ2022G052).

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Author notes

  1. Guoge Yang and Xianhong Xiang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xinjiang Innovation Management Research Center, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830046, China

    Guoge Yang, Xianhong Xiang, Feng Deng & Fengyi Wang

  2. School of Economics and Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830046, China

    Guoge Yang, Xianhong Xiang, Feng Deng & Fengyi Wang

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  1. Guoge Yang
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  2. Xianhong Xiang
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Contributions

Conceptualization, G.Y. and F.D.; methodology, G.Y.; software, F.W.; validation, X.X. and G.Y.; formal analysis, F.D.; investigation, F.W.; resources, G.Y.; writing—original draft preparation, G.Y.; writing—review and editing, X.X.; visualization, X.X.; supervision, F.D.; project administration, F.D., X.X., and G.Y.; funding acquisition, F.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Feng Deng.

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Table 16

Table 16 LIG comprehensive index system
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Yang, G., Xiang, X., Deng, F. et al. Towards high-quality development: how does digital economy impact low-carbon inclusive development?: mechanism and path. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 41700–41725 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25185-4

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