Information consumption city and carbon emission efficiency: Evidence from China's quasi-natural experiment

The transformation of public consumption patterns has become a burning question, but there are few studies on public consumption patterns. Therefore, evaluating the impact of ICC policy on carbon emission efficiency holds significant implications. This study settles on 104 pilot cities in China from 2006 to 2020 to assess the impact and the response mechanism of ICC policy on carbon emission efficiency through the time-vary Difference-in-Difference (DID) model. The result shows that: (1) ICC policy significantly promotes the local carbon emission efficiency, which remains robust after a battery of sensitivity tests. (2) It improves carbon emission efficiency through production factors agglomeration effect, industrial structural changing effect, innovation promotion effect, and environmental attention effect; (3) The direct impact of ICC policy on carbon emission efficiency varies across regions with different information consumption and carbon emission base. (4) ICC can improve carbon emission efficiency through the joint implementation of smart city (SC), new urbanization (NU), ecological civilization city construction (EC), Belt and Road Initiative (BR), Broadband China (BC), low-carbon city pilot policy (LCC), and air quality standards (AQS) policy.