Has e-commerce promoted regional green consumption transformation? Evidence from Chinese provincial panel data

Abstract

The rapid advancement of e-commerce has brought new opportunities and challenges to green consumption transformation, which is of pivotal importance in achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Nevertheless, as an emerging platform of consumption, its impacts on green consumption have yet to be fully explored due to its inherent complexity and the lack of available data. This study employs the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2012 to 2023 to explore the impact of e-commerce on green consumption and elucidates the mechanisms from the ‘production-circulation-consumption’ perspectives. The findings indicate that e-commerce promotes green consumption transformation through the improvement of residents' purchasing power, the upgrade of industrial structure and the greening production of enterprises, and the positive effects outweigh its negative impact on the whole. Furthermore, environmental regulations of government exert a significant positive moderating effect. The heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the positive impact of e-commerce on green consumption is more evident in the eastern and central regions of China, or under the circumstances with higher level of pollution, or among population with lower education and income level. This study extends the theoretical investigation into the nexus between e-commerce and consumption, providing a basis for governmental and entrepreneurial strategic decision-making, thus further contributing to green development of economy.