Large-scale Cities Research Articles

Synergistic Impacts of Carbon Emission Trading Policy and Innovative City Pilot Policy on Urban Land Green Use Efficiency in China

Reducing the conflict between economic expansion and environmental conservation requires green-based innovation policies. The synergistic impacts of these policies on promoting urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) remain underexplored. Utilizing panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities in China (2006-2020), we apply the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) to calculate ULGUE. Employing the staggered difference-in-difference (SDID) model and mediation model, we investigate the synergistic effects of the Carbon Emissions Trading Policy (CETP) and the Innovative City Pilot Policy (ICPP), along with their influencing mechanisms on ULGUE. The results demonstrate that the average ULGUE keeps increasing from 2006 to 2020 and the simultaneous implementation of CETP and ICPP enhances ULGUE, with a more pronounced effect when CETP precedes ICPP. The concurrent implementation of dual policies boosts ULGUE by leveraging technological innovation and industrial structure as mediators. The magnitude of the mediating effect is as follows: green innovation > general innovation > rationalization of industrial structure > advancement of industrial structure. We also observe heterogeneous synergistic impacts of CETP and ICPP on ULGUE, with greater effectiveness in non-resource-based and large-scale cities. These results offer valuable insights for crafting effective policy combinations to advance sustainable development trajectories for China and other developing countries.

Unleashing the power of green fiscal policies: Driving energy efficiency in China

This study examines the impact of such policies on energy efficiency by focusing on the “National Comprehensive Demonstration of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy” (ESER fiscal policy). Using a difference-in-difference method with multiple time points, the study finds that the ESER fiscal policy has significantly closed the total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) gap. The results are robust, supported by sensitivity analyses such as variable substitutions, dynamic effect tests, exclusion of potential intervening variables, placebo tests, and propensity score matching. Mechanism analysis shows that the pilot program closes the energy efficiency gap by increasing expenditure on environmental protection, improving agglomeration of productive services, and promoting of green technological innovation. Furthermore, the impact of green fiscal policies on TFEE is more pronounced in cities within two-control areas, non-old industrial base cities, large-scale cities, and resource-depleted cities. The analysis of the energy rebound effect found that green fiscal policies can effectively close the energy efficiency gap without generating energy rebound. These findings provide valuable insights and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of China's green fiscal policies in achieving green development, improving quality and efficiency.

Impact of dual pilot policies for low-carbon and innovative cities on the high-quality development of urban economies

<p style="margin-top:16px; text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Based on the panel data of 276 cities in China from 2005 to 2021, the article used a multi-period double-difference model to explore the impact of the dual-pilot policy of low-carbon cities and innovative cities on the high-quality development of urban economy. The study found that (1) the implementation of the dual-pilot policy significantly had significantly promoted the economic high-quality development of the pilot cities, and the dual-pilot policy had a more significant effect on the enhancement of urban economic high-quality development compared with the single-pilot. (2) The mechanism analysis showed that green technology innovation, industrial structure adjustment and entrepreneurial activity played a mediator role in the impact of the dual-pilot on the high-quality development of the urban economy. (3) The spatial effect showed that the dual-pilot policy not only promoted the high-quality economic development of the region, but also had a positive spillover effect on the high-quality economic development of the neighbouring regions. (4) The heterogeneity analysis showed that the dual-pilot policy promoted the high-quality economic development of the eastern cities, large-scale cities, and non-resource-based cities more strongly.This study enriches the research on the impact of policy synergy on high-quality economic development, and provides references and insights for the effective implementation of dual-pilot policies and the promotion of high-quality urban economic development.</span></span></p>

The dual effects of digital inclusive finance on the urban-rural income gap: An empirical investigation in China's Yangtze River Delta region

The digital development of finance has positive implications for improving income inequality. As one of the mainstream research findings, the view that digital inclusive finance could alleviate the urban-rural income gap has been reaffirmed. Further empirical evidence reveals that digital inclusive finance bridges the urban-rural income gap by enhancing deposit behavior and promoting innovation activities. Compared with large population scale cities, the development of digital inclusive finance in small ones has a more significant reduction effect on the urban-rural income gap.

Can Pilot Free Trade Zones Promote Sustainable Growth in Urban Innovation?

China’s pilot free trade zones play an important role in promoting deep-level reform and high-standard opening up. Based on the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2021, the article explores the impact of pilot free trade zones on urban innovation using the multi-period difference-in-differences model, mediation effect model, and spatial difference-in-differences model, treating the pilot free trade zone as a quasi-natural experiment. The study shows the following: the establishment of pilot free trade zones boosts sustained growth in urban innovation, and the results still hold after a series of robustness tests; the enabling effect of pilot free trade zones on urban innovation is most significant in eastern regions and large-scale cities; and the role of pilot free trade zones in promoting innovation varies by stage. The mediation impact study revealed that pilot free trade zones can influence urban innovation via talent concentration, foreign direct investment, market scale, and financial support. The pilot free trade zones enhance the innovation performance of its geographically adjacent cities with economic ties and the innovation level of the region. The analysis offers a policy basis for the sustainable growth of urban innovation.

UAS Visual Navigation in Large and Unseen Environments via a Meta Agent

Abstract. The aim of this work is to develop an approach that enables Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to efficiently learn to navigate in large-scale urban environments and transfer their acquired expertise to novel environments. To achieve this, we propose a metacurriculum training scheme. First, meta-training allows the agent to learn a master policy to generalize across tasks. The resulting model is then fine-tuned on the downstream tasks. We organize the training curriculum in a hierarchical manner such that the agent is guided from coarse to fine towards the target task. In addition, we introduce Incremental Self-Adaptive Reinforcement learning (ISAR), an algorithm that combines the ideas of incremental learning and meta-reinforcement learning (MRL). In contrast to traditional reinforcement learning (RL), which focuses on acquiring a policy for a specific task, MRL aims to learn a policy with fast transfer ability to novel tasks. However, the MRL training process is time consuming, whereas our proposed ISAR algorithm achieves faster convergence than the conventional MRL algorithm. We evaluate the proposed methodologies in simulated environments and demonstrate that using this training philosophy in conjunction with the ISAR algorithm significantly improves the convergence speed for navigation in large-scale cities and the adaptation proficiency in novel environments. The project page is publicly available at https://superhan2611.github.io/isar_nav/.

Impact of China’s Energy-Consuming Right Trading on Urban Land Green Utilization Efficiency

China is facing development challenges, such as the red line of arable land, resource shortage, and tightening ecological and environmental constraints. In this context, improving land green utilization efficiency (LGUE) is not only an important undertaking to optimize the spatial layout of the country and improve resource carrying capacity but also an inevitable choice for the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. China’s energy-consuming right trading (ECRT) is an important energy transition demonstration policy; however, its effect on LGUE has yet to be scientifically evaluated in academic research. Using panel data of 260 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2021, this study first uses a difference-in-difference model to test the effect of ECRT on LGUE, analyze its transmission mechanism, and further examine the impact of urban characteristic heterogeneity on policy effects from multiple perspectives. Results show the following: (1) The pilot policy of ECRT significantly improves urban LGUE, as confirmed by robustness tests. (2) The ECRT pilot policy enhances urban technological innovation, promotes the upgrading of industrial structure, and thereby improves LGUE. (3) The ECRT has a more significant enhancement effect on the central and western cities, large-scale cities, and resource-based cities. (4) Government environmental protection assessment can have a positive moderating effect, that is, further amplifying the effect of ECRT on improving urban LGUE. In conclusion, we should solidly promote the construction of a unified national ECRT market, formulate policy implementation plans tailored to local conditions, and steadily improve LGUE. To a certain extent, this paper reveals the inherent logic of how ECRT affects LGUE, which provides opportunities for cities to improve LGUE through ECRT, and provides reference for promoting the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development.

Can carbon reduction policies promote sustainable construction development? Evidence from China’s green building market

Carbon emissions have become a global challenge, and China, as the world’s largest developing country, has a serious emissions problem. Developing green buildings is an important way of reducing carbon emissions. China’s low-carbon city pilot policy may be an effective way of promoting green building development and reducing these emissions. This study uses the low carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employs the staggered difference-in-differences method to investigate its impact on green building development. The results show that the low-carbon city pilot policy promotes green building development, and this policy promotes it by enhancing regional green innovation capacity, improving green total factor productivity at the firm and regional levels, and reducing the financing constraints of firms in the construction and real estate sectors. In addition, the promotion effect of the policy on green building development is stronger in western and non-resource-based regions and large-scale cities in China. This study contributes to the literature related to environmental policy, green building, and carbon emissions and supports the promotion of green building development and the reduction of carbon emissions.

Unlocking Economic Resilience: A New Methodological Approach and Empirical Examination under Digital Transformation

Economic resilience is crucial for urban sustainability as it ensures stability and growth in the face of external shocks, promotes social cohesion and inclusivity, fosters environmental sustainability, and enhances cities’ adaptability to future challenges. This study expands the conventional perspective on economic resilience beyond the context of shocks, focusing on the inherent resilience of regional economic systems. A novel method for quantifying economic resilience is introduced, emphasizing system sensitivity and adaptability. Using Chinese prefecture-level city data and an econometric model, we empirically examine how Fintech, a major digital transition in current urban systems, affects economic resilience. The findings reveal that Fintech has a substantial positive effect on economic resilience, primarily through the upgrading of industrial structures and technological innovation. Furthermore, there is significant regional heterogeneity in the impact of Fintech on economic resilience, with more pronounced contributions in the east, central, and western regions of China, as opposed to the northeast. Additionally, the impact of Fintech on economic resilience is more substantial in large-scale cities. The promotion of economic resilience through digital transformation serves as a potent risk prevention measure. Understanding the role of economic resilience in urban systems holds valuable implications for countries worldwide.

Impacts of pilot carbon emission trading policies on urban environmental pollution: Evidence from China

The trading of carbon emissions is a crucial regulatory method to address environmental pollution issues. This study takes China's carbon emission trading pilot policy established in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the DID model to empirically test the urban panel data from 2006 to 2019. The results show that the carbon emission trading pilot policy can effectively reduce urban environmental pollution, and this effect is more noticeable in mid-western cities, northern cities, cities with fewer resources, and large-scale cities. In addition, to address the urban environmental pollution problem through this policy, the government is encouraged to raise its environmental protection awareness and put more effort into the innovation of technology. In general, this study uses carbon emission trading policies from China to confirm that market-based incentive environmental regulation tools can effectively reduce environmental pollution in urban areas. These findings can provide more theoretical support and empirical evidence for the government to use mechanisms of the market to effectively solve pollution problems, improve ecological environment quality, and accelerate the realization of green economy.

Using Zipf’s Law to Optimize Urban Spatial Layouts in an Urban Agglomeration Area

The study of the land use optimization of urban agglomerations is of great significance to the rational utilization of land resources and the sustainable development of urban agglomerations. Previous studies have simply regarded the urban agglomeration as a whole area or each city as an isolated individual, without considering the regional coordinated development of urban agglomerations in land use optimization objectives. This study proposed the first attempt to couple Zipf’s law and a multiobjective optimization model of land use in an urban agglomeration. Zipf’s law was applied to quantify the coordinated development of urban agglomeration and use it as one of the objectives of land use optimization. The genetic algorithm was adopted to establish the optimization model, and different future development scenarios were designed for comparison. The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration was selected as the study area, and the proposed model obtained effective results within an acceptable time. The Zipf’s law–based optimization objective provided a more coordinated scale structure for urban growth and led the urban structure to develop toward the optimized state. There was a conflict, however, between the coordination and the other two objectives (compactness and suitability). Different stakeholders need to consider the trade-offs among these optimization objectives in urban planning. Finally, based on the optimization patterns of local areas, we suggest the following: Some large-scale cities (e.g., Beijing and Tianjin) should strictly control their new urban expansion or transfer part of their resources and population; Langfang and Xingtai should accelerate their development or take over part of the noncapital function of Beijing; and Zhangjiakou and Chengde should optimize their urban morphology and suitability.

Can smart cities reduce labor misallocation? Evidence from China

The marketization of factors in China lags behind that of products, and this lag is directly manifested as insufficient effective supply of labor, rising labor costs of enterprises, and serious distortion of labor resource allocation, which to a great extent restricts the economic transformation from “quantity” to the “quality” growth. The labor allocation effect of smart cities plays an important role in promoting the transformation to high-quality development in China, but there is still a lack of empirical research testing this effect. Based on panel data of 151 cities at the prefecture level and above for the period 2006–2018, this paper uses a DID model to evaluate the impact of smart city pilot projects on labor misallocation. The results show that, first, smart cities can significantly reduce labor misallocation, and this finding holds under a series of robustness tests. Second, smart cities can reduce labor misallocation through the formation of industrial agglomeration and the upgrading of the industrial structure. Third, the effect of smart cities was more significant in central and eastern cities and large-scale cities than in western cities and small and medium-scale cities. Fourth, smart cities have a significant spatial spillover effect on the reduction of labor misallocation.

Impact of Broadband China Infrastructure Strategy on Fintech: A Quasi-Natural Experiment

Fintech has made an important contribution to the inclusive and sustainable balanced development of the digital economy, and how to improve its development has become a research hotspot. This paper utilizes the Broadband China strategy approved in 2013 as the policy shock, and constructs a DID model to analyze the impact of new infrastructure construction on fintech. The study shows that new infrastructure construction is conducive to the improvement of fintech, and this impact is realized through the all-encompassing expansion of the breadth of fintech coverage and further exploration of the depth of its use. Moreover, heterogeneity studies find that the driving effect of new infrastructure construction on fintech is more prominent in eastern cities, sub-provincial cities, large-scale cities and cities with low levels of traditional infrastructure. This study not only provides evidence for assessing the policy effect of new infrastructure construction, but also provides theoretical and empirical support for how the state promotes the development of fintech, which has certain policy implications.

Smart city construction and new-type urbanization quality improvement

First, utilising text quantitative analysis techniques, this paper analyses the smart city pilot policy in depth and clarifies its theoretical mechanism that influence the quality of new-type urbanisation. The revised entropy technique is then used to calculate the new-type urbanisation quality of 276 Chinese cities with a prefecture level or higher from 2007 to 2018. The above action mechanism is evaluated using the Difference-in-Difference model, employing the smart city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment (DID). The results indicate that the implementation of the smart city pilot policy can significantly enhance the quality of new-type urbanisation, and this conclusion is robust under a variety of conditions, including parallel trend testing, tendency score matching, exclusion of other policy interference and placebo testing. The analysis of heterogeneity indicates that the smart city pilot strategy has a greater impact on the qualitative improvement of new-type urbanisation in historic industrial bases, resource-based cities, and large-scale cities. The mechanism test confirmed that the construction of smart cities has improved the quality of new-type urbanisation primarily through the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure brought about by smart industrial policy and scientific and technological innovation fostered by smart government and smart people's livelihood policies.

Impact of low-carbon city pilot policies on urban green innovation from the perspective of spatial and temporal heterogeneity.

The low-carbon city pilot policy (LCPP) in China is an active response to climate change, with cities serving as the main agents of action. Enhancing green innovation at a city-wide level can effectively support the promotion of pilot cities' efforts towards sustainable growth. Using panel data from 204 prefectures collected from 2005 to 2019, we adopted the time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) model and the spatial Durbin model combined with time-varying DID (SDM-DID) to determine the impact of the LCPP on urban green innovation and its temporal and spatial heterogeneity. Empirical findings showed that (1) LCPP had a significant positive impact on urban green innovation, and green invention patents had a greater green innovation effect than green utility model patents. (2) Heterogeneity analysis revealed that in terms of geographical location, the pilot policy was more effective in promoting urban green innovation in the eastern and central regions in comparison to the western region. At the city level, the pilot policy had a greater impact on green innovation in first- and second-tier cities. With regard to city scale, large-scale cities showed a greater impact on green innovation than small- and medium-sized cities. (3) Mechanistic testing revealed that LCPPs stimulated urban green innovation by talent aggregation, increasing government support for innovation, and public participation; but the mechanism for alleviating financing constraints has yet to be effectively validated. (4) The LCPP showed a spatial spillover effect, whereby one city's low-carbon governance yielded institutional dividends for neighboring cities both geographically and economically, and the impact was more pronounced in those cities that were not resource-based. This study presents empirical evidence at the urban and spatial levels, supporting the comprehensive promotion of low-carbon city construction and development in China.

Digital development and the improvement of urban economic resilience: Evidence from China

Digital technologies are empowering economic and social development, which attracts scholars’ attention to the relationship between digitalization and economic resilience, However, the empirical analysis for different countries and stages of development are inconsistent, and the influencing mechanism need to be further explored. Using panel data for 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2020, this study examines the impact of urban digital development on economic resilience. The findings are as follows: (1) The increased digitalization significantly enhances the urban economic resilience, and this effect was more pronounced in eastern regions and large-scale cities. (2) The relationship between digitalization and economic resilience follows an inverted U-shape as population density increases. (3) The spatial effects show that increased digitalization has a significant positive effect on local economic resilience, but weakens the resilience of the surrounding areas. (4) The analysis of mechanism reveals that the positive impact of digitalization on the urban economic resilience is mainly achieved by improving the quality of the regional labor force and total factor productivity. The study provides theoretical and empirical evidence for accelerating the digital construction, fully releasing the digital dividend in order to strengthen economic resilience.

Carbon emission reduction effects of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones policy: evidence from the prefecture-level city in China.

The establishment of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones is an important practical exploration to achieve carbon emission reduction goals through green finance in China. Based on the panel data of 282 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2019, this paper examines the mechanism of China's green financial reform and innovation pilot zone policy (GFRI) on urban carbon emissions (CE) and carbon emission efficiency(CEE) using difference-in-differences model. The study shows that GFRI has a significant carbon emission reduction effect, which is reflected in the significant reduction of urban CE and the improvement of urban CEE. GFRI achieves carbon emission reduction by promoting urban green innovation, while the mediating effect of financial agglomeration has not been verified. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that GFRI has more significant effects on carbon emission reduction in non-resource-based cities, large-scale cities and cities with strict environmental regulation. Financial development and digital infrastructure play a positive moderating role on the carbon emission reduction effect of GFRI. This study provides empirical evidence and policy insights from the Chinese city level for deepening the green finance policy and promoting urban low-carbon development.

Can digital technology reduce carbon emissions? Evidence from Chinese cities

IntroductionGlobal warming presents significant challenges to the sustainable development of human society. Accelerating the achievement of carbon peak and neutrality is the vision for creating a global ecological community with a shared future. The development of digital technology provides us with the direction of action.MethodsBased on panel data from 276 cities in China from 2011 to 2020, principal component analysis was used to measure the basic state of digital technology at the city level, and the twoway fixed effects model and instrumental variable method to verify the impact of digital technology on carbon emissions from the perspective of technology diffusion.ResultsThe results show that the deep diffusion of digital technology in the real economy sector is helpful to improve productivity and carbon efficiency, thus significantly reducing carbon emissions. The role of digital technologies in reducing carbon emissions is heterogeneous. The results of the sub-sample test show that digital technology has a stronger emission reduction effect in large-scale cities, resource-based cities, smart cities and emission trading policy pilot areas. Digital technology can reduce carbon emissions by improving energy efficiency, promoting green technology innovation, and promoting virtual agglomeration.DiscussionsThe contribution of this paper is that it not only reveals that digital technology can reduce carbon emissions but also analyzes the emission reduction path of digital technology from a new perspective. The conclusion of this paper has implications for accelerating the diffusion of digital technology in the real economy sector to accelerate the realization of green production and cope with climate change.

A conceptual model to estimate flood damages for large-scale cities

Urban flooding is one of the most prevalent natural disasters over the world and poses a serious threat to the safety of people's lives and properties. Estimating urban flooding damage quickly for a large-scale city is of great significance for flood control and damage reduction operation. In this paper, a conceptual model that can be used to estimate flood damages in large-scale cities quickly through representative factors, such as rainfall intensity, of flood disaster driver intensity was proposed based on the analysis of flood damage processes in urban areas. It is a statistical model and extended from hyperbolic tangent function, which show an S shape, considering the physical constraints of urban flood damage processes. The proposed model was then applied in three cities of China, including Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou. The results show that: (1) for annual flood damages, the most suitable representative factor for Hangzhou and Jiaxing is the maximum 1-day rainfall, and for Huzhou is the maximum 3-day rainfall. (2) the proposed model can describe the relationship between flood damages and disaster driver intensities well for studied cities. The relative bias between simulated and observed damages is less than 5% for all the studied cities.

Impact of National Industrial Relocation Demonstration Zones (NIRDZs) policy on urban carbon emissions in China

To improve the industrial spatial layout and propel regional coordinated development, China has implemented the policy of NIRDZs since 2010. However, there is little literature focuses on the relation between NIRDZs and carbon emissions. Based on the balanced panel data from 284 China's prefecture-level cities during 2003–2019, this article combines the time-varying DID model, mediating model, and spatial DID model to systematically qualify the impact of NIRDZs on urban carbon emissions. The results show that: (1) NIRDZs effectively reduce recipient cities' carbon emissions, which has been confirmed by a variety of robustness checks. (2) NIRDZs' carbon reduction effect is more pronounced in cities in the central region, cities with poverty-stricken counties, large-scale cities, and resource-based cities, but exacerbates environmental demonstration cities' carbon emissions. (3) Industrial structure upgrading, foreign capital attraction, and government financial support are the three important channels through which NIRDZs influence urban carbon emissions. (4) NIRDZs have a significant spatial spillover effect on urban carbon emissions, and can significantly reduce carbon emissions in both neighboring pilot and non-pilot cities. These findings have substantially vital theoretical and practical implications for China to achieve low-carbon transformation in cities in the process of industrial transfer.