Retraction: Digital economy, resource distortion and low-carbon inclusive development-Evidence from the perspectives of a threshold effect and knowledge spillover effect

The PLOS One Editors retract this article [1] due to concerns about:
- Compliance with PLOS policy on Authorship.
- Extensive overlapping text in the introduction, and section 4.2., with a previously published article [2] that was not cited or declared to PLOS as related at the time of submission.
Additional concerns were identified about compliance with PLOS policy on Artificial Intelligence Tools and Technologies and the peer review process. The Editors have no evidence of any author involvement in the peer review concerns.
Corresponding author FD replied to acknowledge that the two articles share the same author group and address a closely related research theme, and stated that the authors regret any unintended lack of citation to the prior work. The Editors do not consider this matter to be resolved.
Corresponding author FD declared that the authors used AI-assisted tools to improve the readability of their manuscript.
FD and FW did not agree with the retraction. GY, ZM, XW, and FZ either did not respond directly or could not be reached.
References
- 1. Yang G, Deng F, Wang F, Mao Z, Wu X, Zhang F. RETRACTED: Digital economy, resource distortion and low-carbon inclusive development-Evidence from the perspectives of a threshold effect and knowledge spillover effect. PLoS One. 2024;19(7):e0302402. pmid:39074130
- 2. Yang G, Xiang X, Deng F, Wang F. Towards high-quality development: how does digital economy impact low-carbon inclusive development?: mechanism and path. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023;30(14):41700–25. pmid:36637647
Citation: The PLOS One Editors (2026) Retraction: Digital economy, resource distortion and low-carbon inclusive development-Evidence from the perspectives of a threshold effect and knowledge spillover effect. PLoS One 21(7): e0353312. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0353312
Published: July 8, 2026
Copyright: © 2026 The PLOS One Editors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.