How Does Digital Economy Affect Green Import Trade? Empirical Evidence from China

This study aims to examine (1) the effect of the digital economy development on the imports of green products in terms of both volume and proportion, (2) the mechanism by which the digital economy affects the volume of green imports, (3) the heterogeneity of the effect on the import volume for different types of green products, and (4) whether or not a threshold of economic development level exists for the effect on the proportion of green imports and how the threshold works in the effect. In order to test these hypotheses, we conducted an empirical test using China’s province–commodity–year trade cubic dataset from 2012 to 2022. Our empirical results have yielded several findings. First, digital economy development expands the volume of green imports, and this impact is more pronounced for non-part products, for products for pollution treatment and purification, and for products for monitoring and forecasting. Second, the upgrading and rationalization of industrial structure act as mediators in this impact. Third, the impact on the proportion has a single threshold of regional economic development, with regard to which the impact is nonlinear. This study contributes to the literature by revealing a connection between the digital economy and green imports, and provides practical suggestions on how to boost high-quality green trade development by utilizing the digital economy.