Driving effects of digital economy on green efficiency of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin

Abstract

[Objective] The digital economy helps to promote the green efficiency greatly, and then injects power into promoting the development of new quality productivity force. Exploring the mechanism of digital economy on green efficiency in resource-based cities is of great significance for resource-based cities to break path dependence, realize green transformation and high-quality development. [Methods] Taking 39 resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin as the research object, and considering their geographic distribution, resource types, and development stages, this study measured the green efficiency value of these cities and its dynamic change in 2003-2020 using the data envelopment analysis-slacks-based measure (DEA-SBM) model. Heterogeneity analysis, mechanism analysis, and nonlinear analysis were used to explore the driving effect of the digital economy on green efficiency. [Results] (1) During the study period, the green efficiency value of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin gradually increased and tended to be stable. The downstream cities were better than the middle and upstream cities, the petroleum cities were better than the coal and metal production dominant cities, and the regenerative type cities were better than the mature, growing, and declining cities; (2) The digital economy significantly promoted green efficiency. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the effect of the digital economy on upstream cities, metal production dominant cities, and mature cities is more significant than that of middle and downstream cities and other types of cities; (3) The digital economy indirectly drove the improvement of green efficiency mainly through the intermediary effect of green technology progress rather than industrial structure, and urban agglomerations played a positive moderating role on the effect of the digital economy; (4) The nonlinear analysis showed that resource endowment did not have a threshold effect. The effect of the digital economy first increased and then decreased in its own double thresholds, but increased in the double thresholds of the year, indicating that the optimal level inflection point had not yet appeared. [Conclusion] The digital economy contributes to the green efficiency of resource-based cities, so we recommend to formulate incentive policies at the levels of the whole basin and urban agglomeration. On the basis of industrialization, cities can use the digital economy to reshape and upgrade the original industries in a timely and appropriate manner to jointly promote the green transformation and the development of the digital economy of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin, and further enhance the role of the digital economy in driving green efficiency through the implementation of differentiated measures.

Keywords

• resource-based cities|green efficiency|digital economy|driving effect|yellow river basin