Abstract
This paper investigates how digital finance alleviates the resource curse effect from resource-based cities in China. This paper selects the data from 88 resource-based cities in China from 2011 to 2019 to construct the econometric model test hypothesis. The results show that (1) a resource curse does exist in Chinese resource-based cities. (2) Digital finance can alleviate the resource curse of resource-based cities in China, and this effect has two significant thresholds. (3) The heterogeneity test results show that digital finance’s mitigation effect on the resource curse significantly differs in cities with different environmental regulation intensities and resource abundance. (4) Using the implementation of the broadband China strategy as the proxy variable of digital finance for the robustness test, the above conclusions are still robust. This paper considers the impact of digital upgrading on the financial industry and further studies the mitigation effect of digital finance on the resource curse. It provides a new perspective to study the recent changes in traditional issues in the digital era.
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The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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This work was supported by the National College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (Grant number 202210403036).
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**npeng Huang contributed to the study’s conception, design, data collection, and analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by **npeng Huang. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Huang, X. Can digital finance alleviate the resource curse? Evidence from resource-based cities in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 46618–46631 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25630-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25630-4