Digital economy, green innovation and high-quality economic development

The rapid advancement of the digital economy has reshaped economic structures worldwide, yet its role in fostering high-quality economic development remains insufficiently explored. Existing research has largely overlooked the intricate mechanisms through which digital transformation contributes to sustainable economic progress, particularly the role of green innovation as a mediating factor. Addressing this gap, this study investigates how digitalization influences high-quality development by leveraging a dataset encompassing 279 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2010 to 2022. Employing instrumental variable estimation, propensity score matching, and Heckman selection models, the findings confirm that…