The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Agricultural Productivity: From the Perspective of Digital Transformation

Abstract

China’s goal of becoming a strong agricultural country cannot be achieved without the modernization and digital transformation of the agricultural sector. Presently, China’s agriculture has ushered in the era of digital economy transformation. The digital transformation of agriculture has played a huge role in improving agricultural productivity, promoting sustainable development of China’s agricultural economy, and achieving sustainable development goals. The deep integration of digital economy and agricultural economy has become an important issue of The Times. This study uses a two-way fixed-effects model and an instrumental variable method to examine the impact of environmental regulation on agricultural total factor productivity. Using the method of mechanism analysis, the conduction path of improving agricultural productivity under the means of environmental regulation is discussed. Therefore, the visualization analysis results based on the panel data of Chinese agricultural enterprises from 2011 to 2019 show that the distribution of digital transformation and productivity level of enterprises is uneven and tends to be stable in space. The empirical analysis results show that there is a direct and significant positive relationship between voluntary environmental regulation and agricultural total factor productivity. The results of mechanism analysis show that, under the means of environmental regulation, digital transformation plays an indirect role in improving agricultural productivity. On the basis of enriching and deepening the theoretical extension of the “Porter Hypothesis”, this study subtly incorporates environmental regulation, digital transformation, and agricultural productivity into a unified framework, expanding existing research.