IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i4p3195-d1063362.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of the Digital Economy on the Urban Total-Factor Energy Efficiency: Evidence from 275 Cities in China

Author

Listed:
  • Senhua Huang

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411201, China
    Department of International Economics and Trade, School of Economics and Management, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang 422000, China)

  • Lingming Chen

    (Department of Economics and Statistics, School of Economics and Management, Xinyu University, Xinyu 338004, China)

Abstract

The widespread application of new-generation information technology, such as big data and artificial intelligence, has promoted the development of economic and technological transformation and the deep integration of digital and real economies. The digital economy is an essential force of China in the new era and it is promoting China’s economic development in a high-quality way. In this study, we theoretically describe the mechanism of the digital economy that affects total-factor energy efficiency and empirically analyze the impact of digital economy development on total-factor energy efficiency using data from 275 cities at the prefecture level and above in China from 2011 to 2019. We found that the digital economy has significantly improved total-factor energy efficiency. We used instrumental variable estimation and the replacement of explanatory variables to test the robustness of our results, finding that our conclusions were valid. Technological innovation, industrial structure optimization, and resource misallocation improvement are the channels through which the digital economy affects total-factor energy efficiency. Resource misallocation at the city level as the intermediary variable was this paper’s research gap. Further research showed that the improvement effect of the total-factor energy efficiency in eastern regions and megacities was more evident under the influence of the digital economy. All regions in China should combine their resource endowments to further release the dividends of the digital economy, enabling it to best promote total-factor energy efficiency. The relevant departments of the government should also stimulate market demand and promote the deep integration and balanced development of the digital economy and energy industry in low-energy-efficiency cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Senhua Huang & Lingming Chen, 2023. "The Impact of the Digital Economy on the Urban Total-Factor Energy Efficiency: Evidence from 275 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3195-:d:1063362
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3195/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3195/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Senhua Huang & Feng Han & Lingming Chen, 2023. "Can the Digital Economy Promote the Upgrading of Urban Environmental Quality?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Gao, Da & Li, Ge & Yu, Jiyu, 2022. "Does digitization improve green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from Chinese 213 cities," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    3. Zhu, Bangzhu & Zhang, Mengfan & Zhou, Yanhua & Wang, Ping & Sheng, Jichuan & He, Kaijian & Wei, Yi-Ming & Xie, Rui, 2019. "Exploring the effect of industrial structure adjustment on interprovincial green development efficiency in China: A novel integrated approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. Tone, Kaoru, 2002. "A slacks-based measure of super-efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 32-41, November.
    5. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    6. Liu, Haomin & Zhang, Zaixu & Zhang, Tao & Wang, Liyang, 2020. "Revisiting China’s provincial energy efficiency and its influencing factors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    7. Shuaitao Jiao & Qiubi Sun, 2021. "Digital Economic Development and Its Impact on Econimic Growth in China: Research Based on the Prespective of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    8. Jinqi Su & Ke Su & Shubin Wang, 2021. "Does the Digital Economy Promote Industrial Structural Upgrading?—A Test of Mediating Effects Based on Heterogeneous Technological Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-24, September.
    9. Zhichuan Zhu & Bo Liu & Zhuoxi Yu & Jianhong Cao, 2022. "Effects of the Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-21, August.
    10. Wei Qian & Huan Liu & Fanghui Pan, 2022. "Digital Economy, Industry Heterogeneity, and Service Industry Resource Allocation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-18, June.
    11. Jonas Hjort & Jonas Poulsen, 2019. "The Arrival of Fast Internet and Employment in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 1032-1079, March.
    12. Roman Chinoracky & Tatiana Corejova, 2021. "How to evaluate the digital economy scale and potential?," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(4), pages 536-552, June.
    13. Tang, Liwei & He, Gang, 2021. "How to improve total factor energy efficiency? An empirical analysis of the Yangtze River economic belt of China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    14. Qi Jiang & Jizhi Li & Hongyun Si & Yangyue Su, 2022. "The Impact of the Digital Economy on Agricultural Green Development: Evidence from China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Hao, Yu & Gai, Zhiqiang & Wu, Haitao, 2020. "How do resource misallocation and government corruption affect green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    16. Wu, Haitao & Hao, Yu & Ren, Siyu & Yang, Xiaodong & Xie, Guo, 2021. "Does internet development improve green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    17. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    18. Yi, Ming & Liu, Yafen & Sheng, Mingyue Selena & Wen, Le, 2022. "Effects of digital economy on carbon emission reduction: New evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    19. Xuan Chang & Jinye Li, 2022. "Effects of the Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions in China: A Spatial Durbin Econometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-20, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Natalia Verstina & Natalia Solopova & Natalia Taskaeva & Tatiana Meshcheryakova & Natalia Shchepkina, 2023. "Evaluation of the Energy Efficiency Class of an Industrial Facility: A Rating System and a Scale of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Danxue Fan & Meiyue Li, 2024. "Digital Economy Development and Green Innovation Efficiency from a Two-Stage Innovation Value Chain Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-20, May.
    3. Lei, Peng & Li, Xiaoyan & Yuan, Mingkang, 2024. "The consequence of the digital economy on energy efficiency in Chinese provincial and regional contexts: Unleashing the potential," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    4. Lyu, Yanwei & Zhang, Jinning & Wang, Wenqiang & Li, Yutao & Geng, Yong, 2024. "Toward low carbon development through digital economy: A new perspective of factor market distortion," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    5. Meiling Li & Lijie Zhang & Zhuangzhuang Zhang, 2023. "Impact of Digital Economy on Inter-Regional Trade: An Empirical Analysis in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-22, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huiling Liu & Jianhua Zhang & Hongyun Huang & Haitao Wu & Yu Hao, 2023. "Environmental good exports and green total factor productivity: Lessons from China," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 1681-1703, June.
    2. Wang, Lianghu & Shao, Jun, 2023. "Digital economy, entrepreneurship and energy efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    3. Xu, Ru-Yu & Wang, Ke-Liang & Miao, Zhuang, 2024. "The impact of digital technology innovation on green total-factor energy efficiency in China: Does economic development matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Zhuoxi Yu & Shan Liu & Zhichuan Zhu, 2022. "Has the Digital Economy Reduced Carbon Emissions?: Analysis Based on Panel Data of 278 Cities in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-18, September.
    5. Li Chen & Yuanbo Zhang, 2023. "Does the Development of the Digital Economy Promote Common Prosperity?—Analysis Based on 284 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-16, March.
    6. Fang, Guochang & Chen, Gang & Yang, Kun & Yin, Weijun & Tian, Lixin, 2024. "How does green fiscal expenditure promote green total factor energy efficiency? — Evidence from Chinese 254 cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 353(PA).
    7. Qiuqiu Guo & Xiaoyu Ma, 2023. "How Does the Digital Economy Affect Sustainable Urban Development? Empirical Evidence from Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-21, February.
    8. Guo, Qiu-tong & Dong, Yong & Feng, Biao & Zhang, Hao, 2023. "Can green finance development promote total-factor energy efficiency? Empirical evidence from China based on a spatial Durbin model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    9. Wenhui Luo & Gennian Tang & Peiling Yang & Chunxia Jia & Ruize Yang, 2024. "Examining Digital Economy’s Role in Urban Green Development: A Study of the Yangtze River Delta Region," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 11250-11285, September.
    10. Ziyu Meng & Wen-Bo Li & Chaofan Chen & Chenghua Guan, 2023. "Carbon Emission Reduction Effects of the Digital Economy: Mechanisms and Evidence from 282 Cities in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, March.
    11. Ya Wu & Yin Liu & Minglong Zhang, 2023. "How Does Digital Finance Affect Energy Efficiency?—Characteristics, Mechanisms, and Spatial Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-24, April.
    12. Shaoyan Yang & Duodong Ding & Churen Sun, 2022. "Does Innovative City Policy Improve Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-30, October.
    13. Jiachao Peng & Hanfei Chen & Lei Jia & Shuke Fu & Jiali Tian, 2023. "Impact of Digital Industrialization on the Energy Industry Supply Chain: Evidence from the Natural Gas Industry in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-32, February.
    14. Senhua Huang & Feng Han & Lingming Chen, 2023. "Can the Digital Economy Promote the Upgrading of Urban Environmental Quality?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-21, January.
    15. Ren, Siyu & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao, 2022. "The role of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on green total factor energy efficiency: Does institutional quality matters? Evidence from China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Da Gao & Chang Liu & Xinyan Wei & Yang Liu, 2023. "Can River Chief System Policy Improve Enterprises’ Energy Efficiency? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-17, February.
    17. Zheng, Li & Yuan, Ling & Khan, Zeeshan & Badeeb, Ramez Abubakr & Zhang, Leilei, 2023. "How G-7 countries are paving the way for net-zero emissions through energy efficient ecosystem?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    18. Haikuo Zhang & Chaobo Zhou, 2023. "Construction of the Pilot Free Trade Zone and Chinese Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-13, June.
    19. Huang, Hongyun & Wang, Fengrong & Song, Malin & Balezentis, Tomas & Streimikiene, Dalia, 2021. "Green innovations for sustainable development of China: Analysis based on the nested spatial panel models," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    20. Meng, Ming & Qu, Danlei, 2022. "Understanding the green energy efficiencies of provinces in China: A Super-SBM and GML analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3195-:d:1063362. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.