ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Are Smart Cities Smarter? The Impact of Smart
City Policy on Digital Autonomy of Cities in China
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School of Economics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Zhejiang, Hangzhou 310018, China
Submission date: 2023-08-15
Final revision date: 2023-09-26
Acceptance date: 2023-11-04
Online publication date: 2024-02-14
Publication date: 2024-02-28
Corresponding author
Jianyu Ren
School of Economics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Zhejiang, Hangzhou 310018, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2024;33(3):2209-2222
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ABSTRACT
Urban digital autonomy refers to the autonomous innovation capability of cities in the field
of digital technology, which directly determines whether cities can achieve high-quality development
in the urban digital economy. Using Chinese prefecture-level data from 2009 to 2018, this paper
takes the smart city policy as a quasi-natural experiment to analyze the impact of the smart city
policy on digital autonomy of cities empirically. The research results show that the smart city policy
has significantly improved the digital autonomy of cities, which is 28.25% higher than that of other
cities. After a series of robustness tests, such as the placebo test and propensity score matching DID
(PSM-DID) test and using different samples, this research conclusion still holds. Heterogeneity shows
that the promotion effect of the smart city policy on digital autonomy of cities is greater in eastern
regions, cities with higher rank and larger population size. The research of influence mechanism
shows that the smart city policy can promote digital autonomy of cities through the effect of digital
human capital and digital material capital. Finally, this paper puts forward policy suggestions from
the perspectives of developing digital industries, promoting the construction of smart cities, increasing
the cultivation of digital talents, and paying attention to fairness and efficiency, so as to promote
the digital autonomy of cities.