Shucheng Liu

Existing research thoroughly discussed the dividend effect of big data development (BDD), but few analyses have been conducted from a micro perspective of enterprises’ green development. With the exogenous policy shock of the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone, this study takes Chinese A-share listed companies as the research objects. We adopt the difference-in-differences model to systematically assess the impact of BDD on enterprise green technology innovation (GTI) and the moderating role played by digital inclusive finance (DIF) between the two. The study reveals that BDD significantly contributes to enterprise GTI. Furthermore, the facilitating effect of BDD on GTI is more significant in large enterprises, state-owned enterprises, enterprises with higher degrees of local government data openness, and enterprises with higher levels of the real economy. The moderating effect test shows that DIF significantly moderates BDD and enterprise GTI. Mechanism tests show that BDD promotes enterprise GTI through three channels: strengthening regional environmental regulation, alleviating enterprise financing constraints, and enhancing enterprise human capital. This paper provides valuable ideas for emerging economies planning to promote sustainable growth through BDD policies.

Smart cities are the product of the integration of China’s new urbanization and informatization. Inclusive green growth (IGG) is an important strategic idea for economic development and transformation. This study uses CRITIC-entropy weight method to quantitatively measure IGG index from the three dimensions of economic growth, green growth and inclusive growth. Based on the panel data of prefectural cities in China from 2006 to 2022, this study evaluates the impact of smart city construction on IGG using multi-period difference-in-differences and spatial difference-in-differences models. The results show that smart city construction has a significant positive impact on IGG, as well as economic growth, green growth, and inclusive growth. Meanwhile, the impact of smart city construction on IGG has significant regional heterogeneity. Mechanism test shows that smart city construction positively affects IGG through three dimensions of technology, talent, and governance. Furthermore, there is a spatial spillover effect in smart city construction, which significantly promotes economic growth and green growth in neighboring non-pilot areas, as well as economic growth in neighboring pilot areas. This study provides valuable theoretical insights and policy ideas for planning in emerging economies to promote high-quality development and ecological civilization through smart city strategy.

The transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry is supported by smart and green manufacturing, which have great potential to empower the nation’s green development. This study examines the impact of the Made in China 2025 industrial policy on urban green economic growth. This study applies the super-slacks-based measure model to measure cities’ green economic growth, using the double machine learning model, which overcomes the limitations of the linear setting of traditional causal inference models and maintains estimation accuracy under high-dimensional control variables, to conduct an empirical analysis based on panel data of 281 Chinese cities from 2006 to 2021. The results reveal that the Made in China 2025 strategy significantly drives urban green economic growth, and this finding holds after a series of robustness tests. A mechanism analysis indicates that the Made in China 2025 strategy promotes green economic growth through green technology progress, optimizing energy consumption structure, upgrading industrial structure, and strengthening environmental supervision. In addition, the policy has a stronger driving effect for cities with high manufacturing concentration, industrial intelligence, and digital finance development. This study provides valuable theoretical insights and policy implications for government planning to promote high-quality development through industrial policy.