Can low‐carbon development force enterprises to make digital transformation?
研究低碳发展如何通过环境规制倒逼企业数字化转型，发现碳强度降低会显著提升企业数字化程度，尤其对高生产率企业效果更强，网络基建和数字金融能强化这一效应。
Abstract Enterprises need to innovate business strategies to deal with the negative effects of low‐carbon development, among which digital transformation is an important breakthrough technology. This paper discusses the impact of low‐carbon development on enterprises' digital transformation. Theoretical analysis shows that environmental regulations driven by low‐carbon development have the compensatory effect of stimulating enterprise digital transformation to mitigate misallocation of capital and labor, especially for enterprises with higher productivity. In addition, both the construction of network infrastructure and the development of digital finance can strengthen the incentives for enterprises' digital transformation. The empirical tests based on Chinese A‐share listed enterprises show that the degree of enterprises' digital transformation increases by 0.0122 standard deviation for every one standard deviation reduction in regional carbon emission intensity. These results deepen the understanding of the relationship between green development and microenterprise digitalization.