Has the Integration of Digital and Real Economies Promoted Green Innovation in the Yangtze River Economic Belt?
Keywords:
Digital-real integration, Green innovation, New quality productive forces, Resource Misallocation, Environmental regulation, Government competitionAbstract
Against the backdrop of China's “Dual Carbon” goals and the increasingly robust global climate governance framework, understanding how the integration of the digital and real economies (Digital-real integration) drives green innovation has become crucial for advancing sustainable development. Utilizing panel data from 105 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2011 to 2021, this study employs a coupling coordination degree model to measure the level of digital-real integration and constructs fixed-effects, mediation, and moderation models for empirical testing. The results indicate that digital-real integration significantly promotes green innovation, primarily through enhancing new quality productive forces and alleviating resource misallocation. Furthermore, environmental regulation and local government competition strengthen the positive impact of digital-real integration on green innovation whereas government digital attention exhibits a significant negative moderating effect. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the promoting effect of digital-real integration is more pronounced in non-resource-based cities, non-central cities, and regions with lower entrepreneurial and technology market activity. This research demonstrates that digital-real integration represents not only a systemic shift in the techno-economic paradigm but also a vital mechanism for addressing “green imbalance” and fostering coordinated regional transformation. The findings offer empirical evidence and policy insights for green digital pathways in similar river basins and economic zones worldwide.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Zhou Lixin, Huang Jiarong, Yi Si (Author)
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