Measurement and spatio-temporal heterogeneity analysis of the coupling coordinated development among the digital economy, technological innovation and ecological environment

In-depth exploration of the coupled and coordinated relationship among regional digital economy (DE), technological innovation (TI) and ecological environment (EE) is a vivid embodiment of implementing sustainable development. In order to show the spatiotemporal features of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) from 2011 to 2020, this study builds an evaluation index system from three target levels, namely, the digital economy DE, science and technology innovation TE, and ecological environment EE. Based on this, global and local spatial econometric models, namely the global Moran's I index and the spatio-temporal geographically weighted regression (GTWR) model, are used to identify the spatio-temporal heterogeneity features of each explanatory variable on the CCD. The study results include: (1) The comprehensive evaluation index shows a rising trend, but the development is uneven among systems. (2) The CCD continues to rise steadily, and the regional disparity is widening; the transformation from the near-disorder level to the primary coordination level is realized over the research period. Spatially, the coupling coordination is higher in the eastern and southern regions, while the western and northern regions are relatively low. (3) The GTWR model demonstrates that human capital, urbanization rate, and openness to the outside world promote the CCD. In contrast, the social unemployment rate inhibits CCD, among which human capital is the main force behind coupled and coordinated development.