Author(s)

WeiJie Lin

Affiliation(s)

School of Statistics, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222, China.

Corresponding Author

WeiJie Lin

ABSTRACT

Exploring the impact and spatiotemporal characteristics of the digital economy on pollution and carbon reduction is of great significance in the context of the "dual carbon" goal and The digital economy is advancing at a fast pace. Currently, China is facing the dual task of reducing pollution and carbon emissions, and the "technological dividend" of the digital economy provides a new path for achieving environmental governance goals. However, there are still shortcomings in the systematic analysis of the spatial spillover effects, regional adaptation differences, and dynamic mechanisms of pollution and carbon reduction in the digital economy, which urgently require in-depth research from a multidimensional perspective. This study comprehensively utilized entropy weight method, benchmark regression model, mediation effect model, spatial-Durbin-model (SDM), spatiotemporal-geographically-weighted-regression (GTWR), and graph attention network (GAT) to construct a research framework covering impact effect assessment, mechanism identification, and spatiotemporal dynamic analysis. Firstly, This study utilized the entropy weight method for quantifying the development degree of the digital economy, and conducted an analysis on the spatiotemporal features of both pollutant emission intensity and carbon intensity of emissions, the fundamental correlation between the digital economy and environmental performance is revealed; Secondly, through the application of a fixed effects model, the digital economy exerts a direct influence on achieving the twin goals of reducing pollution and carbon emissions, and identifying indirect paths such as industrial structure upgrading, technological progress, and green finance through a mediation effect model; Finally, using spatial econometric models and GAT models, analyze the spatial dependence, regional heterogeneity, and the digital economy’s emission reduction effects: Spatiotemporal dynamic evolution characteristics.

KEYWORDS

Digital economy; Pollution reduction and carbon reduction; Spatial effects; Spatiotemporal heterogeneity; Intermediary mechanisms

CITE THIS PAPER

WeiJie Lin. Impact of digital economy development on pollution reduction and carbon reduction. World Journal of Economics and Business Research. 2025, 3(5): 83-93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/wjebr3081.

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