CO2 emission spillover effects in the digital transformation of China's manufacturing industry and its inter-industry differences

The digital economy now drives China's new economic growth. However, with various industries' digital transformation (DT), the consequent environmental pollution problems must be addressed. To achieve a better balance between economic growth and environmental protection, digitalization and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction targets should be achieved. In promoting the DT of manufacturing, it is essential to consider the industry's CO2 emissions and the CO2 emission spillover effects (CO2SE). This paper first constructs a model of CO2SE generated and suffered in the DT of industries using input-output techniques, i.e., the perpetrator and victim effects, and measures these effects. Then, the cross-sectional inter-industry differences and vertical time-series characteristics are analyzed based on the measurement results. Finally, the convergence test of CO2 emission spillover effects in the digital transformation (CO2SE-DT) of China's manufacturing industry is conducted, and the test results are analyzed. The research results show that (1) digital infrastructure-dependent and technology-intensive manufacturing have the largest CO2SE-DT, followed by capital-intensive and labor-intensive manufacturing in that order. (2) The whole victim effect in the DT of China's manufacturing industry shows an "N"trend. In addition, according to the time-series changes of the perpetrator effect in the DT of China's manufacturing industry between 2000 and 2014, China's manufacturing industry can be classified into three types: stable, fluctuating downward, and fluctuating upward, among which the fluctuating upward type is the key industry of concern for CO2 emissions. (3) There is no gradual decrease in the industry differences in CO2SE-DT of China's manufacturing industry, but manufacturing industries with low CO2SE-DT levels have faster growth rates compared with high-level manufacturing industries and eventually achieve convergence of CO2SE-DT rate of change. However, there is a significant difference in the results of the industry difference analysis for different types of manufacturing industries. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).