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As a new engine of economic growth, marine economy has gradually attracted the high attention of countries around the world. At the same time, digital technology is becoming a crucial propeller to empower almost all perspectives of economic sustainable development. This research delineates the exploration of the distinctive regional attributes pertinent to the sustainable development of the marine economy and its interrelation with digital technology in China. Utilizing data spanning from 2013 to 2021 across China's eleven coastal areas, this paper adopts the entropy method to develop comprehensive index systems of both marine economy sustainable development and digital technology to evaluate regional their spatiotemporal characteristics, interrelations, and potential mechanisms based on the panel fixed effects model and Dagum Gini coefficient. The results show that both the level of digital technology and green development in marine economy exhibit a steady upward trend with significant regional differences and hierarchical phenomenon. Notably, regional development disparities within the tripartite major marine economic zones are discernible, with intra- and inter-regional variances being markedly pronounced. Further analysis affirm a substantial linkage between digital technology and the sustainable development of the marine economy, positing technological innovation as a plausible conduit. Our findings advocate for the augmentation of digital technology application through technological innovation, as a strategy to foster the sustainable development of the marine economy while ensuring regional equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital era, digitalization brings great opportunities and challenges for cities' environmental governance and economic growth. However, it is worth noting that the impact of digitalization on cities' green transition has not been studied from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. This paper uses the principal component method and non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to calculate the digital development level and the green economic performance of 269 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. (1) The empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has become a strong driver for cities' green economic transformation. (2) Digitalization indirectly promotes green transition through industrial structure optimization and green technological innovation. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the positive effect of digitalization on green development is more obvious in eastern and economically developed cities. (4) Using the partially linear functional-coefficient model (PLFC), this paper studies the non-linear nexus between digitalization and green economic transition from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. Thus, Metcalfe's law is confirmed in the green transition of Chinese cities. Some policy recommendations are offered for realizing the coordinated development of digitalization and greening of the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]