数字经济提升了生态效率吗?——基于生态足迹的实证检验

Has the Digital Economy Improved Ecological Efficiency?Empirical Test Based on Ecological Footprint

实现可持续发展需要提高生态效率,即以最少的资源占用实现最大的经济产出。数字经济具有较高的经济效率和较强的绿色属性,可以在增加经济产出的同时减少资源占用,从而提高生态效率。采用2011—2019年30个省份的面板数据,以人均GDP与人均生态足迹之比测度生态效率,分析发现:数字经济显著提升了生态效率,生产效率和产业结构在其中发挥了部分中介作用,即数字经济能够通过提高生产效率和促进产业结构升级来提升生态效率;数字经济对生态效率的影响具有非线性特征(门槛效应),表现为随着数字经济发展水平和生产效率的提高而增强;数字经济对生态效率的影响存在地区和时间异质性,表现为对资源型地区的影响较小、在推进“数字中国”建设后(2015年之后)影响较大。此外,数字经济对生态效率的提升作用主要源自促进人均GDP增长,但当数字经济发展水平较高时,其抑制人均生态足迹增加的作用也开始显现。因此,应积极推动数字经济发展,并重视和增强数字经济在减少资源占用和环境污染方面的功效,以更有效地提高生态效率。

Human social development has made ecological carrying capacity more fragile and sensitive,exacerbating the“butterfly effect”of expanding ecological footprints.However,the development of the digital economy has improved ecological efficiency,providing new opportunities to balance human social development and environmental protection.Nevertheless,existing literature lacks in-depth research on measuring ecological efficiency from the perspective of the balance between economic output and ecological footprint.In particular,it lacks thorough analysis of how the development of the digital economy affects ecological efficiency by embedding production efficiency and upgrading industrial structure at a deeper level of inherent logic.This paper believes that the rapid development of the digital economy plays an important role in achieving harmonious coexistence between humans and nature and enhancing ecological efficiency.Based on the provincial panel data from 2011 to 2019 in China,using the ecological footprint model and entropy-weighted TOPSIS method to respectively calculate the changes in the ecological footprint and the level of digital economic development in each province of China,and using per capita economic output and ecological footprint to measure ecological efficiency,this paper empirically tests the impact of the digital economy on ecological efficiency.The research found that the development of China’s digital economy has significantly improved the ecological efficiency of various regions.Mechanism tests show that the promotion effect of China’s digital economy development on ecological efficiency can be achieved through the mediation of production efficiency and industrial structure upgrades;threshold tests show that the higher the level of development of China’s digital economy,the stronger the enhancing effect on ecological efficiency,but under different production efficiency and industrial structure conditions,the impact of the digital economy on ecological efficiency is either a single threshold effect or no threshold effect;heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of China’s digital economic development on ecological efficiency is heterogeneous.From the perspective of regional resource dependency,the promotion effect of the digital economy on ecological efficiency is stronger in non-resource-based areas than in resource-based areas.From the analysis of the policy nodes of the“Digital China”initiative,the post-node effect is stronger.Compared with existing literature,this paper mainly expands and deepens as follows:first,this paper measures ecological efficiency from the perspective of the ecological footprint and economic output,reflecting the impact of economic development on the ecological environment with an ecological footprint,revealing the changing laws and inherent logical relationships between the ecological footprint and ecological efficiency.Second,this paper puts the digital economy,ecological footprint,and ecological efficiency in the same analytical framework and conducts an in-depth analysis of the impact of the digital economy on ecological efficiency based on the changes in ecological footprints in various regions of China.Thirdly,unlike existing literature that focuses solely on the role of industrial structure upgrades or green ecological efficiency on ecological efficiency,this paper comprehensively analyzes the mechanism of the digital economy on ecological efficiency from the aspects of production efficiency and industrial structure upgrades,and empirically tests the mechanism and non-linear characteristics of the digital economy in enhancing ecological efficiency.This study deepens the connotation and measurement methods of ecological efficiency,to a certain extent,reveals the inherent logical relationship between the digital economy and ecological efficiency,and helps governments at all levels formulate policy measures for the development of the digital economy from the aspects of improving resource utilization efficiency,promoting green technology innovation and research and development,optimizing industrial structure,and strengthening the construction of digital infrastructure.