The unreasonable economic development model of human beings has caused the environmental pollution problem to become increasingly serious. In order to achieve a positive relationship and interaction between environmental regulation, research and development (R&D) investment, and green technology innovation, and effectively solve the “strange circle” problem between high-quality economic development and environmental pollution in China and even the world, this paper takes the panel data of industrial enterprises above designated size in Chinese mainland 31 provinces from 2009 to 2019 as a research sample. The comprehensive index of R&D investment and green technology innovation was established by the entropy method, and the panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model was constructed from the dynamic endogenous perspective, and the dynamic interaction and regional heterogeneity between environmental regulation, R&D investment, and green technology innovation were empirically analyzed by using impulse response function and variance decomposition. We obtain the following findings: (1) Environmental regulation has a two-way interaction relationship with R&D investment and green technology innovation, and R&D investment has a promotion effect on the “green degree” of technological innovation, but its role is still weak and has lagging characteristics. (2) There is significant regional heterogeneity in the dynamic responses of the eastern, central and western parts of China. (3) In the long run, environmental regulation has a “negative crowding out effect” on R&D investment in the central region, and the phenomenon of “central collapse” still exists but will gradually weaken. Environmental regulation has a “positive innovation compensation effect” on green technology innovation. Green technology innovation and R&D investment have an obvious “Pareto improvement” effect on environmental regulation, especially in the eastern region. The conclusions of this study help to clarify the dynamic interaction between environmental regulation, R&D investment, and green technology innovation, further improve environmental regulatory policies and green technology innovation R&D decision-making, and provide an effective way to achieve green and sustainable development in China and other parts of the world.

With the introduction of the dual carbon goals of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutrality”, low-carbon economic development has become the focus of attention for all sectors in China. Improving carbon productivity (CP) is the key to developing a low-carbon economy and is essential to achieving carbon emission reduction and economic growth. The rapid development of the digital economy (DE) provides a new breakthrough for improving carbon productivity, but there are few studies on the digital economy and carbon productivity in the existing literatures. We empirically investigate the impact mechanism of the digital economy on provincial carbon productivity using China’s provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019. This study finds that the digital economy significantly raises provincial carbon productivity; this result remains valid after a series of robustness tests. The digital economy can impact provincial carbon productivity through both energy consumption structure (ECS) and green technology innovation (GTI) and can contribute to the improvement of provincial carbon productivity by optimizing energy consumption structure and improving green technology innovation. In addition, different environmental regulations have different impacts. Command-and-control environmental regulation (CER) weakens the positive impact of the digital economy on provincial carbon productivity, whereas market-based environmental regulation (MER) enhances the positive impact of the digital economy on provincial carbon productivity. This study extends the research on the digital economy in the field of low-carbon development, providing insights and policy suggestions for relevant departments to promote low-carbon development from the perspective of the digital economy.

This study constructs a theoretical model to examine the relationship between digital transformation and carbon performance of manufacturing enterprises, with a focus on the roles of green innovation capability, environmental decentralization, and slack resource. Using the data of Chinese manufacturing enterprises listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2011 to 2020, this study employs the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) method to conduct analyses. The results show that digital transformation can significantly improve carbon performance, and the robustness tests support the result. Green innovation capability plays a partial mediating effect in the impact of digital transformation on carbon performance. Environmental decentralization plays a moderating effect in the impact of digital transformation on carbon performance, and this moderating effect is partly achieved through the mediating effect of green innovation capability. Different types of slack resource play different moderating effects in the impact of digital transformation on carbon performance. Specifically, absorbed slack resource plays a negative moderating effect, while unabsorbed slack resource plays a positive moderating effect. The findings expand the theoretical research on the impact factors of carbon performance and provide new insights and decision-making frameworks for manufacturing enterprises to improve carbon performance.