Does digital economy promote sustainable development: Case of EU countries?

Abstract

The digital economy and sustainable development are treated as the world’s progress, and there is a vast number of papers investigating the indirect linkage between these two phenomena. However, there is a lack of studies analysing the direct influence. Hence, the purpose of the current paper is to find out if there is an impact of the digital economy, expressed by DESI sub-dimensions, on sustainable development, represented by SDGI. For that issue, statistical data covering 2017–2020 was gathered, and panel regression modelling was applied. The survey covers 28 EU countries (including the United Kingdom because the data was collected before Brexit). The findings revealed that DESI sub-dimensions influence SDGI; however, the impact was negative in most cases. Thus, the current paper showed that standard views on the influence of the digital economy are not always the right ones.