The digital economy and environmental pollution: New evidence based on the support of logistics development

Abstract

As the world's largest manufacturing and export country, environmental preservation in China has received widespread public attention. Although existing literature has focused on the relationship between the digital economy (DE) and environmental degradation from the supply side, it fails to incorporate the role of logistics and demand side. This study employs two-way fixed-effects model and two-stage least square method (2SLS) to empirically evaluate the emission abatement effect mechanisms of the digital economy under local logistics development for China's 31 provinces from 2015 to 2019, constructing an integrated framework and narrowing the gaps of existing studies. The empirical results suggest that digital economy growth can have an inhibitory effect on pollution emissions, while logistics development has a negative moderating effect on this impact. These conclusions still hold after a series of robustness tests to eliminate the influence of outliers and regionally differentiated policy interference. Mechanism analysis indicates that technological innovation, changes in industrial structure and consumption structure are significant mediating mechanisms, while logistics development provides indispensable support for the above mediation effect. Hence, this study overall implies that to further unleash the potential of emission abatement effect, adequate attention should be given to exerting the advantages of the digital economy and weighing the green transformation of logistics, enhancing the public's sense of environmental happiness worldwide.