With the development of digital technologies such as the Internet and digital industries such as e-commerce, the digital economy has become a new form of economic and social development, which has brought forth a new perspective for environmental governance, energy conservation, and emission reduction. Based on data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2018, this study applies the space and threshold models to empirically examine the digital economy’s influence on haze pollution and its spatial spillover. Furthermore, it investigates the spatial diffusion effect of regional digital economic development and haze pollution by constructing a spatial weight matrix. Subsequently, an instrumental variable robustness test is performed. Results indicate the following: (1) Haze pollution has spatial spillover effects and high emission aggregation characteristics, with haze pollution in neighbouring provinces significantly aggravating pollution levels in the focal province. (2) China’s digital economy has positively impacted haze pollution, with digital economic development having a significant effect (i.e., most prominent in eastern China) on reducing haze pollution. (3) Changing the energy structure and supporting innovation can restrain haze pollution, and the digital economy can reduce the path mechanism of haze pollution through the mediating effect of an advanced industrial structure. It shows a non-linear characteristic that the influence of haze reduction continues to weaken. Thus, policymakers should include the digital economy as a mechanism for ecologically sustainable development in haze pollution control.
To promote the integration of urban ecology, culture and tourism, it is necessary to provide both supply side capital supply and demand side consumption activation. In order to accurately identify the impact of the government's bilateral guidance on the integrated development of culture and tourism, this paper uses the data of 285 cities in China from 2011 to 2021 to measure the level of urban cultural and tourism integration development under the systematic framework of "culture-ecology-tourism", and then uses the difference-in-differences model to identify the role of capital supply and demand expansion based on the government's cultural and tourism industry guidance fund and consumption pilot policy. Research has found that: (1) The integrated development of urban ecology, culture and tourism presents an overall spatial pattern of "high in the east and low in the west", with gradient differentiation within the region. Its spatial imbalance and differentiation characteristics are more obvious. (2) The cultural and tourism industry guidance fund has a significant positive effect on the integration of ecological culture and tourism, while the implementation of consumption pilot policies cannot pass the significance test. However, the coordination between supply side and demand side policies can produce stronger positive effects, and there is spatial heterogeneity in the coordination. (3) The integration of the market, the improvement of the business environment, and the increasing attention to the integration of cultural and tourism networks can strengthen the policy coordination between supply and demand and promote the integration of urban ecology, culture, and tourism. In addition, there is a U-shaped negative spatial spillover characteristic in the government's policy coordination of both sides, and the "siphon effect" reaches its maximum at around 300 km.
9 May 2026 in Environment, Development and Sustainability