Improving total factor carbon productivity (TFCP) is the core pathway to China’s low-carbon economic transformation and achieving the “dual carbon” goals. Based on panel data of 30 Chinese provincial-level regions from 2010 to 2023, this paper measures regional TFCP via an undesirable-output super-efficiency SBM model and empirically analyzes the impacts and spatial spillover characteristics of industrial intelligence and the digital economy on TFCP using a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM). Results show China’s TFCP rose overall but exhibited a widening regional gap of “higher in the east, lower in the west”, with significant positive spatial autocorrelation in regional TFCP. The digital economy exerts a significantly positive direct effect and strong positive spatial spillover effect on TFCP, forming a “local driving + spatial radiation” promotion pattern. Industrial intelligence has an insignificantly negative direct effect on local TFCP, yet its positive spatial spillover effect is significant at the 1% level, leading to a significantly positive total effect that reflects its obvious spatial externality, with low-carbon dividends more prominent in regional coordination. Both factors show notable regional heterogeneity: industrial intelligence has a significantly negative direct effect in the east, significantly positive in the central region and insignificant in the west, with positive indirect effects in the east and west; the digital economy presents “local-spillover dual drive” in the east, “local-dominated drive” in the central region and “spillover-dominated drive” in the west. Among control variables, coal-based energy consumption structure and secondary industry-dominated industrial structure significantly inhibit regional TFCP with strong negative spatial spillovers; green finance has an insignificant positive effect, while FDI shows an insignificantly positive direct effect and significantly negative indirect effect due to the “pollution haven” effect. The work clarifies the spatial effects and regional heterogeneity of industrial intelligence and the digital economy on TFCP, providing empirical evidence and policy references for formulating differentiated regional coordination policies, leveraging the two as a “dual engine” to boost China’s regional TFCP and advance high-quality green and low-carbon economic development.
Xiao et al. (Fri,) studied this question.