Research On The Impact Of Internet Development On Green Total Factor Productivity

On April 20,1994,with the success of sending and receiving e-mail between China and the United States for the first time,China’s Internet era began.According to the 48 th report of China Internet Information Center,as of June 2021,the number of Internet users in China has reached 1.011 billion and the Internet penetration rate has reached 71.6%.New business forms and new economy based on the Internet have become an emerging force to promote China’s economic development.Nowadays,China’s economy is in an important stage of transformation from high-speed growth to high-quality development.As an important measure of high-quality economic development,green total factor productivity is of great practical significance to study the relationship between Internet development and green total factor productivity growth and how to better play its positive role in green total factor productivity growth.Firstly,this paper defines the relevant concepts,and theoretically explains the impact mechanism of Internet development on green total factor productivity.Then,the principal component analysis method and super efficiency sbm-gml index method are used to calculate the Internet development level and green total factor productivity of each province from 2008 to 2019,and the dagum Gini coefficient is used to analyze the size and source of the spatial difference between them.Then,based on the calculation results,this paper empirically tests the overall effect of Internet development on green total factor productivity and the transmission path of energy effect by using the fixed effect model.Finally,this paper makes an empirical study on the nonlinear relationship between the Internet and green total factor productivity from the two aspects of human capital and market environment.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)there are obvious regional differences between China’s Internet development level and green total factor productivity growth,and the total differences between the two show an expanding trend.At present,the overall differences between the two mainly come from regional differences.(2)The development of Internet has a significant positive impact on the growth of green total factor productivity in China,and after the endogenous and robustness test,the result is still significantly positive.(3)The energy effect under the action of the Internet is an important channel to affect green total factor productivity,that is,the Internet can affect green total factor productivity through energy conservation and emission reduction.(4)Human capital plays a positive regulatory role in the relationship between the Internet and green total factor productivity,that is,the higher the quality of labor force,the more high-quality labor force,and the more obvious the effect of Internet development on the improvement of green total factor productivity.The market environment has a single threshold in the relationship between the Internet and green total factor productivity,that is,its promoting role will be further enhanced at a high level of marketization.Finally,according to the theoretical analysis and empirical results,this paper puts forward the following suggestions on how to promote the growth of green total factor productivity and how to give better play to the positive role of the Internet,including:(1)Building inclusive Internet and solving the imbalance of regional development of the Internet.(2)Promote the further integration of the Internet and the modern industrial system,optimize the energy structure and improve the productivity of enterprises.(3)Increase investment in human capital.(4)Strive to promote market-oriented reform.