Abstract:

Based on panel data of 268 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2017, this study regarded the policy of the next-generation internet demonstration city as a quasi-natural experiment, and empirically tested the impact of the policy of the next-generation internet demonstration city on urban carbon emissions by using the Difference in Difference model (DID). The results show that the policy of the next-generation internet demonstration city can alleviate the carbon emissions of the city, and the carbon emissions of the city can be alleviated by 1.41%. This conclusion still holds after the robustness test. In the mechanism analysis, the policy of the next-generation internet demonstration city mainly alleviates urban carbon emissions through industrial structure optimization and green technology innovation. Further heterogeneity test shows that the construction of the next-generation internet demonstration city has a more significant emission reductions effect on large cities and high carbon emissions, while it aggravates carbon emissions in small and medium-sized cities.

Key words: Next-generation internet demonstration city, Urban carbon emission, Difference in Difference (DID), Mediation effect, Heterogeneity analysis