Direct and indirect impacts of high-tech industry development on CO2 emissions: empirical evidence from China
2020
Gu, Wei | Liu, Di | Wang, Chen | Dai, Shufen | Zhang, Donghui
Vigorously developing high-tech industry has been considered to be an effective way to coordinate economic growth with excessive carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. However, previous studies have not explored the heterogeneous impacts of high-tech industry on CO₂ emissions in regions with different levels of high-tech industry development, and not distinguished the direct and indirect impacts. Based on STIRPAT model, this study investigates the impacts of high-tech industry development on CO₂ emissions in China between 2005 and 2016. Adopting the K-medians cluster method, effects in regions with high, middle, and low levels of high-tech industry development are considered. Indirect effects of high-tech industry development on CO₂ emissions by affecting industry structure upgrades and economic growth are explored. Empirical results illustrate a positive U-shaped nonlinear link between the level of high-tech industry development and CO₂ emissions at the national level and regional (high, middle, and low) level. In terms of indirect impacts, high-tech industry development attenuates the reduction of CO₂ emissions due to industry structure upgrades, and promotes economic growth to increase CO₂ emissions slightly. The indirect impact intensity gradually decreases as the level of high-tech industry development decreases across three regions. Reasonable implications of our findings are proposed.
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