The Impact of Smart City Construction on Urban Innovation——An Empirical Test Based on Difference-In-Differences Model
The construction of smart cities is an important means of promoting city innovation and ad-dressing the phenomenon of"urban diseases."Using a sample of 214 prefecture-level cities in China from 2001 to 2021,this study employs the national smart city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizes the difference-in-differences method to assess its impact on city innovation levels.The find-ings reveal that:(1)The smart city pilot policy can significantly boost urban innovation outcomes,with longer implementation periods resulting in stronger innovation-enhancing effects;(2)Mechanism verifi-cation shows that smart city development elevates city innovation levels by improving urban informatiza-tion,facilitating industrial upgrading,and increasing marketization;(3)The policy effects display nota-ble variations across cities with different geographic locations and hierarchical levels.
smart city pilot policycity innovationdifference-in-differences