Does digital economy promote regional green innovation? An empirical study based on the transmission effect and threshold effect of marketization

Abstract

Exploring the green innovation effect of the digital economy under the condition of socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics is of great contemporary value. In this paper, we incorporate digital economy development, marketization and green innovation into a unified analytical framework. Based on the theoretical analysis of the intrinsic logical relationship among the three, a panel data of 31 provinces in mainland China from 2011 to 2021 is employed to empirically test the effect and mechanism of digital economy development on green innovation under the condition of marketization. The results show that digital economy development is effective in improving the level of regional green innovation; Marketization is an important transmission mechanism for digital economy to release the effectiveness of green innovation. Besides, marketization has a significant double threshold effect on green innovation driven by digital economy. To promote the synergistic development of China's digital economy, market-oriented reform and green innovation in the future, we should focus on promoting the construction of an “enterprise-public-government” community for digital economy and improving the mechanism of market-oriented green innovation.