Sheng Zhang

Enhancing urban innovation resilience is crucial for adapting to change and pursuing innovation-driven, high-quality development. The global trend of digital transformation has profound implications for urban innovation; however, the specific effects of digital transformation on urban innovation resilience remain insufficiently explored. This study utilizes panel data from 285 prefecture-level and above cities in China, spanning from 2007 to 2022. It treats the Broadband China Pilot (BCP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment of digital transformation and employs a time-varying Difference-in-Differences (DID) method to investigate the impact of digital transformation on urban innovation resilience. The results yield several important insights: (i) digital transformation enhances urban innovation resilience; (ii) the effect of digital transformation on urban innovation resilience is heterogeneous across regions and city sizes; (iii) digital transformation improves urban innovation resilience through the mediation effect of green total factor productivity (GTFP); (iv) urban industrial upgrading and urban innovation vitality play significant moderating roles in the relationship between digital transformation and urban innovation resilience. These findings contribute to a deeper theoretical understanding of the relationship between digital transformation and urban innovation resilience.

Given the phenomenon of “financing is difficult and expensive” for MSEs, this paper empirically investigated the influencing mechanism of the credit demand side characteristics on the financing constraints of MSEs based on the information conveyance perspective. The conclusions show that MSEs in China are severely suffering from financing constraints and 57.17% and 50.00% of MSEs with credit demand have not applied for loans from formal and informal financing channels, respectively. In terms of enterprise characteristics, MSEs have low asset size, short establishment history, weak profitability, and lack of tools such as fixed assets, complete financial management system, professional technicians, and private brands to convey risk information to financing institutions, which are key factors resulting in their financing constraints. In terms of owner characteristics, young owners lack financing experience and convey higher risk information to financing institutions; therefore, owners’ age negatively influences the financing constraints of MSEs. These findings suggest that banks can use big data credit technology as a tool to obtain risk information about MSEs, and the government should implement diversified interventions to improve the information environment in financial markets. These findings provide empirical evidence for banks and governments to address the financing constraints of MSEs.

Colleges and universities play a crucial role in fostering innovation, making it essential to explore effective strategies for promoting innovation at the institutional policy level. This paper focuses on the establishment of intellectual property model cities as a starting point and conducts an empirical analysis using innovation data from 234 cities and 942 colleges and universities between 2007 and 2017. By constructing a multi-temporal double-difference model, this study reveals that the establishment of intellectual property model cities effectively fosters innovation in colleges and universities. Further analysis demonstrates that this promotional effect is particularly significant in the western region, key cities, and key colleges and universities, as well as in the fields of invention and utility model patents. These conclusions withstand a series of robustness tests, confirming their validity. This study reveals that the national intellectual property pilot city policy has a significant influence on university innovation. It achieves this by encouraging investment in research and development and enhancing collaboration in innovation. The findings of this study provide important policy suggestions for maximizing the innovation potential of the intellectual property model city policy. This, in turn, can contribute to economic transformation, upgrading, and the promotion of innovation development in China.

Credit rationing hindered the development of MSEs. Big data credit technology creates a great opportunity to address this issue. Then, how does big data credit technology affect and to what extent can it alleviate the credit rationing of MSEs? Based on the bounded rationality economic man hypothesis, the evolutionary game model of banks and MSEs under the traditional mode and big data credit technology are constructed, respectively, in this paper, and the evolutionary trajectory of bank-enterprise credit strategies under the two modes are comparatively analyzed. The results show that it is hard to alleviate the credit rationing of MSEs under the traditional mode. However, under big data credit technology, when the overall credit level of MSEs is high, the credit rationing of MSEs will be effectively alleviated. When the overall credit level of MSEs is too low, it is difficult to determine whether big data credit technology can alleviate the credit rationing of MSEs. In order to verify the feasibility of big data credit technology in alleviating the credit rationing of MSEs, a simulation experiment is conducted to compare the differences in the credit rationing of MSEs with different credit levels under the two credit modes. We found that the credit rationing of MSEs is always lower under big data credit technology than under the traditional mode. Therefore, big data credit technology can effectively alleviate the credit rationing of MSEs under any circumstances. The research provides theoretical support for banks to apply big data credit technology to achieve a win-win situation for both parties.

Smart city policy (SCP) is crucial to addressing climate change and achieving sustainable urban development with low carbon emissions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms through which smart city policies have an impact on carbon emission efficiency (CEE). In terms of research methodology, we construct a quasi-natural experiment on smart city policies in China and use the time-varying DID approach to study this issue. The DEA method was used to measure the CEE. For the data sample, panel data from 281 cities in China between 2007 and 2020 was used in this study. The findings are as follows: ① SCP has a significant impact on CEE. This conclusion remains valid after introducing parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and other robustness tests. ② The mechanism test result reveals that SCP has a positive impact on urban CEE through three main channels: promoting industrial upgrading, increasing public environmental attention, and enhancing marketization. ③ The analysis of heterogeneity reveals that the impact of SCP on CEE is noticeable in cities that belong to well-developed economic regions with a lower intensity of environmental regulations, higher levels of green finance, and fewer official changes. This research contributes to the existing literature on the environmental assessment of SCP and offers valuable policy insights for cities to tackle climate change and sustainable urban planning.

Aiming at the strategic behaviour in ‘technology make-or-buy decisions’ in the real economy, this study develops a Cournot competition model with endogenous technological level, by comparing the technology acquisition cost of technologically backward firms under different technology acquisition strategies, we theoretically analysed the ‘anti-extortion’ mechanism of indigenous innovation by technologically backward firms, and the relationship between indigenous innovation and technology imports is empirically tested by using the data of Chinese industrial enterprises above designated size. We show that indigenous innovation can significantly enhance a firm's bargaining power, and the technology acquisition strategy of simultaneous technology imports and indigenous innovation can not only reduce the technology imports cost but also reduce the indigenous innovation cost. Therefore, only by indigenous innovation based on technology imports, can firms enhance their market competitiveness.

One of the features of credit markets is that borrowers are sometimes rationed in the amount that they can borrow, which differentiates them from other markets. Small and micro enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to be eliminated than large and medium-sized enterprises under credit rationing. However, SMEs play a significant role in employment creation and growth of gross domestic products in developing countries. So, it is of great significance to study the reasons why SMEs are more vulnerable to credit constraints. By considering the differences in characteristics between SMEs and large and medium-sized enterprises, we established a theoretical model with endogenous enterprise size, and by considering banks’ screening principles before and after the loan approval, we have analyzed the micro-mechanism in which there are significant differences in credit availability between SMEs and large and medium-sized enterprises. Our conclusion indicates that credit rationing in SMEs is the result of the rational choice by banks for the purpose of profit maximization.

Based on the perspective of knowledge transfer and the technology acceptance model (TAM), this paper constructs a university technology transfer sustainable development model that considers the inventor’s technology service from the perspective of the long-term cooperation of enterprise, and analyzes the mediating effect of the inventor’s technology service on university technology transfer sustainability. By using 270 questionnaires as survey data, it is found that the availability of an inventor’s technology service has a significant positive impact on the attitude tendency and practice tendency of enterprise long-term technological cooperation; enterprise technology absorption capacity and trust between a university and an enterprise also have significant influence on an inventor’s technical service availability. Therefore, the inventor’s technology service acts as a mediator in the relationship between university technology transfer sustainability and influence factors. Universities ought to establish the technology transfer model, which focuses on the inventor’s tacit knowledge transfer service, and promotes the sustainable development of the university.

This article develops a new indicator of financial system risk tolerance capacity to see how the financial risk management function mechanism reacts to economic growth by applying a system generalized method of moments estimation technique. Based on a sample of 49 countries for the period 1998–2011, we find that both bank and stock market risk tolerance capacity can significantly promote long-run economic growth through absorbing and bearing real economic risks. These findings indicate that financial system risk tolerance capacity, which provides a powerful trial and error system, has a positive effect on long-term growth. Therefore, the policy implication is that releasing controllable financial risks actively and moderately beforehand may support scientific and technological innovation, maintain financial stability and, finally, promote long-run economic growth.

In the situation of indirect network effect, this paper mainly studies the optimal extended warranty price. First, the characteristics of the extended warranty price are discussed. Next, the optimal extended warranty price model is advanced. From the model, the authors can draw that the influence factors mainly include the producer and consumers’ risk preferences, the incompatible degree of the producer’s maintenance technology, the extended warranty period, the producer and consumers’ per-occasion maintenance cost. Finally, the authors carry the simulation method to indicate their influence relation. The results have theoretical significance for the automobile producer to ensure the optimal extended warranty price.