Roads to sustainable development: Pioneering industrial green transformation through digital economy policy

Abstract

This study employs a staggered difference-in-differences approach to examine the impact of digital economy policy on industrial green transformation, using the Broadband China demonstration cities policy as a quasi-natural experiment. The findings suggest that, first, digital economy policies contribute significantly to industrial green transformation through three primary mechanisms: by increasing public environmental awareness, by fostering green innovation, and by expanding the information industry. Second, the effect is contingent on several factors, namely resource endowments (particularly stronger in non-resource-based cities); the type of industrial city (stronger in non-old industrial base cities); the size of the city (with a stronger effect observed in large cities compared to small and medium-sized agglomerations), and geographic location (with a stronger effect observed in eastern regions). The study concludes by proposing a nuanced vision of the policy implications and strategic insights for the development of digital economy policies and sustainability principles in rapidly evolving economies.