Digital Village Development and Agricultural Carbon Reduction in China: Evidence from Provincial Panel Data

Using balanced panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2014 to 2023, this study examines the relationship between digital village development and input-related agricultural carbon emissions in China. A composite digital village index is constructed from eight standardised indicators, and PCA diagnostics together with a PCA-based alternative index are used to assess index validity and sensitivity. Two-way fixed-effects models are used for empirical estimation. The results show that digital village development is significantly associated with lower agricultural carbon emissions after controlling for economic, fiscal, technological, regulatory, provincial, and temporal factors. The finding remains robust when using a rural e-commerce proxy and alternative specification checks. The lagged digital index has a negative coefficient but is less precisely estimated after the first-year observations are excluded. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the association is stronger in provinces with higher rural educational attainment, in Central China, and in major grain-producing areas, while the coefficient for grain-balanced areas is negative but not statistically significant. Mechanisation-based subgroup results further show that the negative association is more pronounced where agricultural mechanisation is relatively advanced. These findings suggest that rural digitalisation can support a low-carbon agricultural transition, particularly when digital infrastructure is transformed into effective industrial applications, public services, human capital development, and improved production organisation. This study focuses on input-related and field-operation-related agricultural carbon emissions rather than a complete agricultural greenhouse gas inventory including methane, nitrous oxide, and manure management and land use change emissions.