Impact path of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency: Mediating effect based on technological innovation.

The digital economy (DIE), a new economic form with digitalization at its core, has become an important driving force for promoting regional economy development. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring the impact path of the DIE on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) is conducive to giving full play to the "carbon-reduction-and-efficiency-enhancement" role of the DIE, and to promoting the realization the "dual carbon" goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In this paper, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) and the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) are taken as study areas, the panel Tobit model is used to explore the impact of the DIE on CEE, and the intermediary-effect model and threshold-effect model are constructed to test the intermediary and threshold effects of technological innovation, respectively. The results show that the DIE has a U-shaped nonlinear impact on CEE in both the YRB and the YREB and that the impact has regional heterogeneity. Technological innovation can play a mediating effect between the DIE and CEE, whereas the mediating effect in the YRB is stronger than that in the YREB. Technological innovation has a threshold effect on the DIE to improve CEE, while the threshold value in the YREB is higher than that in the YRB. Furthermore, this paper proposes some suggestions to guide regional low-carbon and sustainable development. Impact path of digital economy (DIE) on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) and Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). [Display omitted] • The Super-SBM model is used to evaluate the urban carbon emission efficiency (CEE), and the entropy weight method is used to evaluate the development level of urban digital economy (DIE). • The DIE has a U-shaped nonlinear impact on CEE in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) and the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). • The intermediary model and threshold model are used to test the intermediary effect and threshold effect of technological innovation between DIE and CEE. • Technological innovation can play a mediating effect between DIE and CEE, whereas the mediating effect in the YRB is stronger than that in the YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]