Mechanisms Through Which Digital Rural Construction Enhances Agricultural Ecological Resilience in China
TL;DR
Digital rural construction is significantly and positively associated with agricultural ecological resilience, and this finding survives a series of endogeneity treatments and robustness checks, including instrumental variable regression.
Abstract
Amid accelerating global digitalization, digital rural construction has become an important force in advancing green agricultural development. Using panel data for 30 provinces in mainland China from 2010 to 2023, this study measures digital rural construction and agricultural ecological resilience and examines the relationship between them with two-way fixed effects, mediation, and threshold models. The results are as follows: (1) During the sample period, the two variables both displayed a steady upward trajectory. (2) Digital rural construction is significantly and positively associated with agricultural ecological resilience, and this finding survives a series of endogeneity treatments and robustness checks, including instrumental variable regression. (3) Digital rural construction affects agricultural ecological resilience indirectly through environmental governance investment and industrial structure upgrading. (4) The effect has a threshold character, turning significantly positive only after the level crosses the threshold value. (5) The effect is more pronounced in the central and eastern, southern, and low-altitude regions. These findings offer empirical evidence on how digital rural construction can raise agricultural ecological resilience.