The effects of smart city construction on urban green total factor productivity: evidence from China

Abstract

As a new urbanization mode, smart cities provide a way to achieve the mutually beneficial situation of both economic development and environmental protection. As such, the question of whether and how smart-city construction can promote the high-quality development of urban economies is worth considering. By measuring the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 233 cities in China from 2004–2019, this paper adopts the national pilot smart cities of China as a quasi-experiment and constructs a time-varying DID model to explore the direct, dynamic, and heterogeneity influence of smart-city construction on GTFP. The results indicate the following: (1) Smart-city construction can significantly promote the urban GTFP, which is mainly caused by the progress of green technology, and the effect is robust after a series of robustness tests; (2) smart-city construction can contribute to GTFP improvement primarily through accelerating technological innovation, promoting industrial upgrading, and realizing resource allocation optimization; and (3) smart cities that are larger in scale, have a higher administrative rank, and lie in eastern regions have stronger positive effects on GTFP. This study aims to contribute to the promotion of urban sustainable development.