Synergistic evolution and driven path of digital economy, green technology innovation and ecological resilience: An empirical analysis based on city clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in China

Abstract

Abstract In the background of the synergistic development of digitalization and greening, how to achieve the synergistic development of digital economy, green technology innovation and ecological resilience has become an important research issue. This study combines the TOE theory to construct a theoretical framework for the synergistic development of digital economy, green technology innovation and ecological resilience. Combined with the data of 28 cities in the city cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2011 to 2021, the level of synergistic evolution of digital economy, green technological innovation and ecological resilience was measured by using the Haken model, and the driven path of synergistic development was analyzed with the help of fsQCA. The results of the study show that: (1) the synergistic evolution level of the city cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in the observation period has a rising trend, and there is a significant difference between the cities. (2) The difference in the level of synergistic evolution, the second stage of the first stage of synergistic level has been improved, but more than half of the cities are still in the low-level synergistic stage, and there is still a large space for the future to rise. (3) Four paths have evolved from low-level to high-level synergistic evolution, the digital economy-led path, the green technology innovation and digital economy synergy-driven path, the digital economy and ecological resilience synergy-driven path, and the multi-dimensional synergy-driven path, respectively.