Can smart city construction facilitate green total factor productivity? A quasi-natural experiment based on China’s pilot smart city

2021 ◽  
pp. 102809
Author(s):  
Jiang Hongli ◽  
Jiang Pengcheng ◽  
Wang Dong ◽  
Wu Jiahui
Keyword(s):  
Total Factor Productivity ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Factor Productivity ◽  
City Construction

scholarly journals Effects of Smart City Policies on Green Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (13) ◽  
pp. 2396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin ◽  
Qu
Keyword(s):  
Total Factor Productivity ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Population Expansion ◽  
Factor Productivity ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Development Patterns ◽  
City Policy ◽  
The City

When cities develop rapidly, there are negative effects such as population expansion, traffic congestion, resource shortages, and pollution. It has become essential to explore new types of urban development patterns, and thus, the concept of the “smart city” has emerged. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between smart city policies and urban green total factor productivity (GTFP) in the context of China. Based on panel data of 200 cities in China from 2007–2016 and treating smart city policy as a quasi-natural experiment, the paper uses a difference-in-differences propensity score matching (PSM-DID) approach to prevent selection bias. The results show: (a) Smart city policies can significantly increase urban GTFP by 16% to 18%; (b) the larger the city, the stronger and more significant this promotion.

scholarly journals Does Low-Carbon City Construction Improve Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (22) ◽  
pp. 11974
Author(s):  
Hongfeng Zhang ◽  
Lu Huang ◽  
Yan Zhu ◽  
Hongyun Si ◽  
Xu He
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Technical Efficiency ◽  
Total Factor Productivity ◽  
Technical Progress ◽  
Scale Efficiency ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Factor Productivity ◽  
City Construction ◽  
Low Carbon City

Low-carbon city construction (LCC) is an important strategy for countries desiring to improve environmental quality, realize cleaner production, and achieve sustainable development. Low-carbon cities have attracted widespread attention for their attempts to coordinate the relationship between environmental protection and economic development. Using the panel data from 2006 to 2017 of prefecture-level cities in China, this study applied the difference-in-differences (DID) method to analyze the effects of LCC on the total factor productivity (TFP) of the cities and its possible transmission mechanism. The results show significantly positive effects on TFP, but the effects on each component of TFP are different. Although the LCC has promoted technical progress and scale efficiency, it has inhibited technical efficiency. The accuracy of the results has been confirmed by several robustness tests. Mechanism analysis showed that the pilot policy of low-carbon cities has promoted technical progress and scale efficiency by technological innovation and the upgrading of industrial structure, but resource mismatches among enterprises have been the main reason for reduced technical efficiency. Regional heterogeneity analysis showed that the effects on TFP in the eastern region have been more significant than in the central and western regions. In the eastern region, they have promoted technical progress, while in the central and western regions, they have promoted technical progress and scale efficiency but hindered technical efficiency. This paper presents our findings for the effects of LCC on economic development and provides insightful policy implications for the improvement of technical efficiency in low-carbon cities.

scholarly journals Does the Construction of a Water Ecological Civilization City Improve Green Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (22) ◽  
pp. 11829
Author(s):  
Hongzhong Fan ◽  
Shuang Tao ◽  
Shujahat Haider Hashmi
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Total Factor Productivity ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Compensation Effect ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Factor Productivity ◽  
Ecological Civilization ◽  
Compliance Cost ◽  
Policy Effects ◽  
The Impact

Taking Water Ecological City Pilot (WECP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper adopts the PSM-DID method to investigate the impact of the WECP policy on the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of China’s prefecture-level cities. The results show that the implementation of the WECP policy significantly inhibits the improvement of GTFP. Furthermore, we find the implementation of the WECP policy has squeezed out government technological expenditures to some extent and aggravated the compliance cost of enterprises, which has not caused the “innovation compensation effect”, thus failing to improve GTFP. The heterogeneity analyses show that the policy effects vary with the imbalance of China’s regional development and resource endowments. Developed regions can better overcome the possible negative impact that comes with policy implementation. Governments need to formulate different policy strategies and plans from an overall macro perspective.

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