The Impact of Urban E-Commerce Transformation on Carbon Emissions in Chinese Cities: An Empirical Analysis Based on the PSM-DID Method

Abstract

To accelerate global green and low-carbon development, China has proposed a “double carbon” target. It is particularly important to explore the carbon reduction effects of e-commerce transformation in cities to achieve sustainable development. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the National E-Commerce Demonstration City (NEDC) pilot, 263 cities from 2008 to 2017 were selected as samples, and the propensity score matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method was used to investigate the influence of NEDCs on urban carbon emissions in China and its underlying mechanism. The results show that NEDCs can significantly reduce urban carbon emissions; the carbon emission level of pilot cities was reduced by 9.45%. After passing a series of robustness tests, this conclusion remains valid. The policy effects of NEDCs on carbon emissions are heterogeneous across different regions and types of cities, with the policy effect being more significant in central and western cities and in resource-based cities. Further mechanism analysis shows that the NEDC policy reduces urban carbon emissions mainly through two channels, namely, green technology innovation and industrial structure upgrading. This study provides important policy implications for the implementation of e-commerce demonstration city construction according to local conditions and the realization of urban sustainable development under the double carbon goal.