Moderating Role of Knowledge-Sharing on the Nexus of Digital Business and Natural Resources

This study conducts an empirical analysis of the effects of the procedure of transforming digital on natural resource rents in the private and public sectors. In our paper, we analyze the changes in total natural rents (rents from coal, mineral, natural gas, and forest) by digital businesses (e-commerce, involving shopping online, turnovers e-commerce, trading on e-commerce web, and business electronically, involving the use of customer relationship management (CRM), and cloud usage). From 2011 to 2019, a sample of 26 countries from the European Union was examined using various econometric approaches. Our estimation results demonstrate that digital businesses cause a rise in overall natural rents. More precisely, the rents for coal and gas appear to be more influenced by an enterprise’s integration of digital technologies. On the other hand, digitalization in the business sector tends to lower coal rents and mineral and woodland rents. Notably, knowledge-sharing is the most crucial component to promote the efficiency of digitalization in preventing natural rent-seeking.