Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Geoscience and Society
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1496438
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploration, Development, and Protection of Earth’s Resources and Environment: Methods, Techniques, Applications, Prospects, Insights, and Problems View all 30 articles

Research on the Impact of Digital Economy Development on Mineral Resource Utilization Efficiency

Provisionally accepted
Ye Tian Ye Tian 1*Min Chen Min Chen 1*Wu Yang Wu Yang 1*Xiaoxun Wu Xiaoxun Wu 1*Manli Cheng Manli Cheng 2*Wei Liu Wei Liu 3*
  • 1 The Seventh Geological Brigade of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
  • 2 Beijing Information Science & Technology University, Beijing, China
  • 3 Tsinghua University, Beijing, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The international geopolitical crisis and the rigid management system increase the risk of a mineral crisis in China, but the development of the digital economy provides a possibility for the efficient utilization of mineral resources. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) from 2011 to 2022, this research measures the level of China's digital economy development and the utilization efficiency of mineral resources, and examines the transmission path of the digital economy development on the utilization efficiency of mineral resources by using the mediation effect model. The results show that (1) the development of the digital economy can significantly improve the utilization efficiency of mineral resources, and this conclusion is still valid after the instrumental variables method and other robustness tests. For every unit of progress in the development of the digital economy, mineral resource efficiency improves by 0.226. (2) The upgrading of industrial structure and technological progress play a mediating role in the digital economy and the improvement of mineral resource utilization efficiency. (3) The digital economy has a significant heterogeneous effect on the utilization efficiency of mineral resources in China's eastern, central, and western regions, with the most prominent positive effect in the central and western regions. The positive effect is most prominent in the Midwest at 0.180, and is not significant in the East.

    Keywords: digital economy, Mineral resource efficiency, super-efficiency SBM-DEA, System GMM, Mediation effects

    Received: 14 Sep 2024; Accepted: 10 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Tian, Chen, Yang, Wu, Cheng and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Ye Tian, The Seventh Geological Brigade of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
    Min Chen, The Seventh Geological Brigade of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
    Wu Yang, The Seventh Geological Brigade of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
    Xiaoxun Wu, The Seventh Geological Brigade of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
    Manli Cheng, Beijing Information Science & Technology University, Beijing, China
    Wei Liu, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.