Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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Daily Overview |
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Air pollution 3 Location: Auditorium G Session Chair: Jasper Paul Röder, ETH Zürich | |
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From Digital Carts to Cleaner Air: The Role of E-commerce in Reducing Urban Air Pollution 1: Peking University, China, People's Republic of China; 2: Tsinghua University, China, People's Republic of China E-commerce represents a rapidly growing share of consumer spending and generates considerable economic profits in the developing world, yet its environmental impact remains underexplored. While online shopping reduces trips to physical stores and lessens individual vehicle usage, the rising demand for logistics exacerbates congestion and intensifies strain on urban transport systems. Using a comprehensive e-commerce and air quality dataset covering 283 Chinese cities from 2016 to 2021, we investigate the net environmental impact of online shopping by examining the change in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in response to the increased e-commerce demand surrounding the annual Singles’ Day shopping festival, an influential online retail discount event in China. We employ Baidu Index search frequency data for keywords ”Tmall” and ”Taobao” during the two weeks before and after the event as a proxy for city-level online shopping activities, capturing the sharp increase in consumer demand triggered by Singles’ Day. We find a sizable reduction of 5.97% in NO for every 10% increase in online purchases immediately following the event. The effect is significant but substantially smaller in magnitude (1.87%) in the long term, as city-specific factors and broader economic activity are considered. To address concerns of endogeneity, particularly the potential reverse causation that cities experiencing higher levels of air pollution tend to engage in greater e-commerce activity, we use e-commerce service quality as a valid instrumental variable and include extensive city-level controls. Our result is also robust to additional covariates, different specifications, and alternative measures of online purchasing intensity. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that cities with lower concentrations of online suppliers and higher levels of e-commerce import activity experience greater reductions in NO2 levels. higher levels of air pollution tend to engage in greater e-commerce activity, we use e-commerce service quality as a valid instrumental variable and include extensive city-level controls. Our result is also robust to additional covariates, different specifications, and alternative measures of online purchasing intensity. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that cities with lower concentrations of online suppliers and higher levels of e-commerce import activity experience greater reductions in NO2 levels. Our paper provides the first empirical evidence that online shopping benefits the alleviation of NO2 concentration, suggesting that shifts in consumer behavior—prompted by the convenience and accessibility of online shopping—can mitigate some of the negative environmental impacts typically associated with traditional retail activities. We further investigate the redistribution of NO2 emissions driven by e-commerce, both within and between cities. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of e-commerce’s environmental footprint and offer guidance for policymakers pursuing sustainable urban development in a digital economy. | |