How Does the Sharing Economy Affect Urban Carbon Emissions?Empirical Evidence from Ride-Hailing Services

This paper treats the entry of ride-hailing services into cities as a quasi-natural experiment and systematically examines the causal effect of the sharing economy on urban carbon emissions based on panel data from Chinese cities spanning 2014 to 2017. The study finds that the market entry of ride-hailing services significantly reduces per capita carbon dioxide emissions in cities. This conclusion holds robust across a series of sensitivity tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that ride-hailing contributes to emission reduction primarily through two channels: optimizing industrial structure and strengthening the digital technology infrastructure. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that this carbon-reducing effect is significantly moderated by cities geographic and economic characteristics: its low-carbon advantage is more pronounced in large cities with dense populations and industrial agglomeration, while in smaller cities with limited market capacity and economic activity, the marginal benefits tend to diminish. This study provides micro-level empirical evidence for the green value of the sharing economy and offers valuable policy implications for how cities can leverage the sharing economy to promote sustainable development.