Discovering the E-Government and COVID-19 Effect on Sustainable Development: Novel Findings from the China Provinces

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of E-government (EG) and COVID-19 on environmental sustainability (ES), considering the Load Capacity Curve (LCC) in the Chinese provinces, which employs the panel MMQR method. This study reveals that E-government initiatives positively impact environmental sustainability, with a 1% increase in E-government effectiveness leading to a rise in ES between 0.05% and 0.40%. Conversely, COVID-19 has a pronounced negative effect on sustainability, particularly at the medium quantiles. The results also report the non-LCC hypothesis in Chinese provinces. The Dumitrescu–Hurlin (DH) causality outcome indicates a bi-directional causal association between environmental sustainability and E-government practices and the unidirectional link from COVID-19 to environmental sustainability. These findings highlight the policy implication of the critical role of E-government in promoting environmental sustainability despite the challenges posed by economic and demographic factors.