The Heterogeneous Causal Impacts From E‐Government on Climate Adaptation: Does Institutional Quality Matter?

ABSTRACT

Climate change increasingly challenges countries' adaptive capacity, while digital governance has emerged as a potential driver of more effective climate responses. Understanding how the effects of e‐government vary across different levels of climate adaptation is important for informing appropriate and targeted policy interventions. This study analyzes the heterogeneous causal impacts of e‐government development on climate adaptation and examines the moderating role of institutional quality. Using global panel data from 188 countries over the period 2003–2022, the Instrumental Variables Quantile Regression (IVQR) approach is employed to address endogeneity and capture distributional heterogeneity across quantiles of climate adaptation. The results indicate that e‐government development has positive effects across all quantiles, with stronger impacts observed at higher levels of adaptability. In addition, institutional quality not only directly improves climate adaptation but also significantly amplifies the positive impact of e‐government development, with consistent effects across quantiles. Robustness is confirmed through supplementary estimation techniques, e‐government sub‐indicators, and alternative instrumental variables. This study provides distribution‐sensitive causal evidence on the role of e‐government and institutional quality in climate adaptation, offering relevant insights for policy prioritization and reform design.