Digital Economy‐Green Finance Synergy and Economic Growth Quality in Emerging Markets: A Coupling Coordination Analysis

ABSTRACT

This study examines how digital economy‐green finance coordination influences economic growth quality across 15 emerging markets during 2010–2023. Coordination is measured through a coupling coordination degree integrating digital economy (five indicators from ITU, World Bank, UN) and green finance (five indicators from CBI, IRENA, World Bank, CCPI) subsystems. Growth quality is operationalized as an entropy‐weighted composite of 14 indicators across five dimensions, using exclusively open‐access data from 10 international databases. A coupling coordination model is employed to quantify the interactive harmony between digital economy and green finance systems, instrumental variable estimation (geographic latitude‐time interaction, F  = 48.73) to address endogeneity, and bootstrap mediation analysis (1000 iterations) to identify transmission mechanisms. The results show that coordination significantly enhances growth quality ( β  = 0.496, p  < 0.01). The coupling coordination degree increased from 0.348 to 0.627 (80.2% improvement). Technological innovation (28.5%) and environmental improvement (26.8%) serve as primary transmission channels. Effects vary up to 3.3‐fold across income levels, infrastructure configurations, and policy environments. Results remain robust across 10 sensitivity specifications. However, manual data extraction may introduce measurement errors, and the sample ends at 2023; future research should employ enterprise‐level datasets and dynamic panel models. The findings support differentiated digital‐green development strategies: deep integration for high‐income economies, infrastructure development for middle‐income countries, and basic investment prioritization for low‐income contexts. This study provides the first cross‐country comparative analysis of digital economy‐green finance coupling coordination effects on growth quality in emerging markets, establishing a replicable paradigm using 10 freely accessible databases.