Digital economy, technological innovation, and residents' low-carbon consumption

The digital economy, with its low-carbon attributes and capacity to stimulate knowledge creation, is central to global sustainability efforts. This study examines its impact on residents' low-carbon consumption, focusing on the mediating role of technological innovation. Using panel data from 30 provincial-level regions in China (2011–2021), the baseline results show that the digital economy significantly promotes residential low-carbon consumption. This finding remains significant in both robustness tests and endogeneity tests. However, the effect is not uniform. Geographically, the promoting effect is strongest in Western China, while it is negative or insignificant in Eastern and Central China. When provinces are divided into catching-up, leading, and benchmark regions according to economic development stages, the effect is most prominent in catching-up and leading regions. In contrast, it shows a significantly negative effect in benchmark regions, primarily due to rebound effects such as “excessive consumption” and “hidden high-carbon consumption”. This study verifies the pathway of “digital development → innovation transformation → consumption upgrading”. It reveals the dynamic balance between the enabling and rebound effect of the digital economy across regions for designing differentiated policies to support low-carbon transitions.