Spatial and Temporal Divergence in the Coupling Coordination of Digital Economy, Environmental Regulation and Sustainable Development: An Experience Study in China

The digital economy and environmental regulation are important drivers of sustainable development, and exploring the coupling of the three is important for promoting the coordinated development of regional economy, society and environment. However, integrating the three into the same system and evaluating their coupling and coordination has been little studied in academia. This research employs the entropy method with objective weighting to measure the levels of digital economy, environmental regulation and sustainable development in 30 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) in China from 2011 to 2020, invokes the concept of coupling in physics, constructs a coupling coordination degree model and identifies the spatial and temporal divergence characteristics of the coupled and coordinated development of the three subsystems. The results of the study demonstrate that: (1) the levels of digital economy, environmental regulation and sustainable development reveal a fluctuating trend of growth, with environmental regulation having the highest overall level; (2) there are spatial and temporal differences in the degree of coupling and coordination of the three subsystems, with a national coupling and coordination degree at the temporal level lying between moderate and good coordination, and showing a “W”-shaped upward trend in general and a “chain” at the spatial level; (3) There is a significant spatial autocorrelation in the degree of coupling coordination, with a localized “high–high” and “high–high” pattern. Based on the above results, the article concludes with suggestions to enhance the development level of each subsystem, providing thoughts for the improvement of the coupling and coordination degree of the three in the later stage.