Spatial Effect of Digital Economy on Particulate Matter 2.5 in the Process of Smart Cities: Evidence from Prefecture-Level Cities in China

Jingrong Tan and Lin Chen ()
Additional contact information
Jingrong Tan: School of Economics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China
Lin Chen: School of Economics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital economy has developed rapidly. The airborne nature of COVID-19 viruses has attracted worldwide attention. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyze the impact of the digital economy on particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5 ) emissions. The research sample of this paper include 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019 in China. Spatial Durbin model was adopted to explore the spatial spillover effect of digital economy on PM 2.5 emissions. In addition, considering the impact of smart city pilot (SCP) policy, a spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model was used to analyze policy effects. The estimation results indicated that (1) the development of the digital economy significantly reduces PM 2.5 emissions. (2) The spatial spillover effect of the digital economy significantly reduces PM 2.5 emissions in neighboring cities. (3) Smart city construction increases PM 2.5 emissions in neighboring cities. (4) The reduction effect of the digital economy on PM 2.5 is more pronounced in the sample of eastern cities and urban agglomerations.

Keywords: digital economy; particulate matter 2.5 emissions; spatial Durbin model; smart city pilot policy; spatial difference-in-differences model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14456/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/14456/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:14456-:d:963166

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().