Does Internet Development Improve Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency? Evidence from China

By Haitao Wu, Yu Hao, Siyu Ren, Xiaodong Yang, Guoe Xie. Social Science Research Network, 2021

498 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Information and communication technology supported by the internet has become an important driving force that promotes the intelligent development of environmental governance in China. Using Chinese provincial panel data for the period 2006–2017, this study investigates whether the internet has improved China's green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) using a dynamic spatial Durbin model, mediation effect model and dynamic threshold panel model. The empirical results indicate that the GTFEE has a significant positive spatial correlation. Internet development can not only directly improve local GTFEE but also improve GTFEE in neighboring regions. After accounting for potential endogeneity, this conclusion is still valid. Meanwhile, internet development can indirectly improve regional GTFEE by reducing the degree of resource mismatch while enhancing GTFEE by improving regional innovation capabilities and promoting industrial structure upgrades. In addition, the regression results of the dynamic threshold model show that there is a nonlinear relationship between the influence of the internet development and GTFEE. Specifically, due to an increase in the degree of labor resource mismatch and capital resource mismatch, the impact of the internet on GTFEE has gradually decreased, and this effect has gradually increased with the improvement of regional innovation capabilities and the industrial structure.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cda1514f29740c69f36f4181a4e3499acf82d0a9

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In Economics and Econometrics

Citations in the corpus

Digital Economy and Environmental Quality: Evidence from 217 Cities in China (2021, background): “[42] reached a similar conclusion that the development of the Internet has improved China’s Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency (GTFEE), which is of great significance to China’s energy conservation and emission reduction.”