Environmental regulation and the digital economy: an analysis of the inducement and enlargement factors of economic disparity between northern and southern China. (English)

Putting ecological protection in a more prominent position is one of the outstanding features of implementing China ' s new development concept. Therefore, the Chinese government has implemented strict environmental regulation measures to improve the ecological environment, and has achieved remarkable results. Using the relevant data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2020 for empirical analysis, this study found that there was a significant U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and regional economic growth. The consumption-oriented tertiary industry and the production-oriented tertiary industry, with market forces as the main resource allocation mode, developed better in southern China than in northern China. The structural advantage of tertiary industry with market forces as the main resource allocation mode in southern China could transform the positive externalities brought by environmental improvement into economic benefits so as to weaken the negative effect of environmental regulation on economic growth. As the basic industry of the digital economy, the production-oriented tertiary industry represented by computer service and the software industry developed better in southern China than in northern China, and the digital economy advanced rapidly in the advantageous industrial categories in southern China. Threshold model analysis showed that when the development level of the digital economy was low, environmental regulation had a significant promoting effect on the economic development of southern regions, while it had an inhibiting effect on the economic development of northern regions. When the development of the digital economy was high, environmental regulation played a significant role in promoting the economic development of southern and northern China, but it was obviously more intense in southern China than in northern China, making the economic disparities between the two demonstrate an amplified trend. Therefore, to narrow these disparities, it is necessary to further optimize the industrial structure in an accelerated manner, and promote the continuous transformation of environmental dividends into economic benefits while making full use of the opportunities of the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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