Digitalization, resource misallocation and low-carbon agricultural production: evidence from China

With the rapid development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, China’s agricultural production is entering a new era characterized by digitalization. Based on provincial panel data of China from 2013 to 2020, this paper adopts the system GMM and mediating effects model to systematically examine the impact of digitalization on low-carbon agricultural production from the perspective of resource misallocation. The results indicate that digitalization can significantly curb agricultural carbon emissions and thus promote low-carbon agricultural production, and this finding still holds after the robustness test. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the inhibiting effect of digitalization on agricultural carbon emissions is most pronounced in the eastern region relative to the central and western regions (the regression coefficients are −0.400 and −0.126 respectively). Further mechanism analysis suggests that digitalization can reduce agricultural carbon emissions by correcting the widespread capital and labor misallocation in agricultural factor markets. The findings of this study provide significant policy implications for low-carbon agricultural production in China.