Impacts of digital government on regional eco-innovation: Moderating role of dual environmental regulations

Regional eco-innovation can change the extensive development mode and promote the sustainable development of the economy and society. In the background of digital government construction, the external environment of regional eco-innovation has changed. In this study, the panel data of 125 prefecture-level cities in China from 2013 to 2020 are used to construct a fixed-effect model for empirical analysis by sorting out the relationships among digital government, regional eco-innovation, and dual environmental regulation. The following conclu-sions are drawn: First, digital government mainly promotes the improvement of regional eco-innovation through digital society and digital citizenship. Second, formal and informal environmental regulations have remarkable positive effects on regional eco-innovation. Third, informal environmental regulation has a positive moderating effect on digital administration and regional eco-innovation and a positive moderating effect on digital citi-zenship and regional eco-innovation. Fourth, formal environmental regulation cannot moderate the relationship between digital government and regional eco-innovation. This study can give priority to promoting the digital government to serve and play a role in ecological governance and environmental information disclosure, so as to provide policy opinions for the government when issuing documents supporting the improvement of regional eco-innovation, and promote the realization of a more reasonable allocation of innovation resources.

Automated summary

This study finds through empirical analysis that digital government can promote regional eco-innovation through the advancement of digital society and digital citizenship. Both formal and informal environmental regulations have a significant positive impact on regional eco-innovation. Informal environmental regulation has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between digital administration and regional eco-innovation, as well as between digital citizenship and regional eco-innovation. However, formal environmental regulation does not moderate the relationship between digital government and regional eco-innovation.