Has Industrial Upgrading Improved Air Pollution?—Evidence from China’s Digital Economy
Guangzhi Qi,
Zhibao Wang,
Zhixiu Wang and
Lijie Wei
Additional contact information
Guangzhi Qi: College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Zhibao Wang: College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Zhixiu Wang: College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Lijie Wei: College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-18
Abstract:
Air pollution has seriously hindered China’s sustainable development. The impact mechanism of industrial upgrading on air pollution is still unclear, given the rapid digital economy. It is necessary to analyze the impact of industrial structure upgrading on air pollution through the digital economy. To investigate the impact of industrial upgrading and the digital economy on air pollution, this paper selected the industrial advanced index and the digital economy index to construct a panel regression model to explore the improvement effect of industrial upgrading on air pollution and selected China’s three typical areas to construct a zonal regression model. The concentrations of air pollutants showed a downward trend during 2013–2020. Among them, the SO 2 concentration decreased by 63%, which is lower than the PM 2.5 and NO 2 concentrations. The spatial pattern of air pollutants is heavier in the north than in the south and heavier in the east than in the west, with the North China Plain being the center of gravity. These air pollutants have significant spatial spillover effects, while local spatial correlation is dominated by high-high and low-low clustering. Industrial upgrading has a stronger suppressive effect on the PM 2.5 concentration than the suppressive effect on the SO 2 and NO 2 concentrations, while the digital economy has a stronger improvement effect on the SO 2 concentration than its improvement effect on the PM 2.5 and NO 2 concentrations. Industrial upgrading has a stronger improvement effect on air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration than in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and its surrounding areas, while the improvement in air pollution attributable to the digital economy in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and its surrounding areas is stronger than in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration. There are significant differences in the effects of industrial upgrading and the digital economy on the various types of air pollutants.
Keywords: air pollution; industrial upgrading; digital economy; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/14/8967/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/14/8967/ (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:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:14:p:8967-:d:868480
Access Statistics for this article
Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu
More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().