The Impact of China's Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions: Evidence from 30 Provinces Data

Abstract

China's digital economy is expanding rapidly, and its relationship to carbon emissions is a frequent topic of discussion. To study this topic, we chose 30 provinces, except Tibet, Tai Wan, Hong Kong, and Macau, found data related to the digital economy from China Statistical Yearbook and sorted them to panel data. Based on these provinces' panel data from 2009 to 2019, this essay uses a multiple regression analysis model to examine how the digital economy affects carbon emissions, and divides the 30 provinces' data into two groups by time to study the impact of the digital economys development in carbon emissions. In this process, we use STATA. In this paper, we choose software industry investment and the number of Internet access ports as two quotes from the digital economy because the digital economy relies heavily in the Internet. From the model, it is clear that the digital economy can help decrease carbon emissions, and by analyzing the first 5 years data from 2009 to 2014 and the data from 2014 to 2019, we found that carbon emissions may rise with the development of digital economy, but as it continues to develop, this effect will disappear. In the end of this paper, based on our findings, we suggest government enlarge the investment in developing digital economy-related industries such as the software industry and the information transmission industry.