Aug 2026· Journal of Asian Scientific Research· Vol 16, pp. 18-41· 0 citations· 30 references
Abstract
This study examines how improvements in digital governance influence urban air quality in global cities. The analysis uses annual PM2.5 and monthly NO2 observations from 280 cities across 120 countries, combined with national e-government indicators, covering the years 2005 to 2023. The study applies various analytical models, including fixed effects models, staggered difference-in-differences, event-study designs, common correlated effects, spatial Durbin models, system-GMM, and panel quantile regression, to capture causal, dynamic, and spatial effects. The results indicate that higher digital government maturity reduces NO2 emissions by approximately 4-5 percent and PM2.5 levels by about 3 percent. The analysis shows that these reductions occur more rapidly following the implementation of e-service initiatives. Event-study estimates confirm the absence of pre-existing trends and demonstrate persistent decreases after the launch of digital services. Spatial models suggest that reforms generate indirect benefits for neighboring cities, and quantile analysis reveals more significant improvements in highly polluted, densely populated areas. The effects are more pronounced in non-OECD countries and cities with higher internet penetration, highlighting the importance of institutional readiness and digital infrastructure for effective environmental outcomes. These findings demonstrate that digital governance reduces administrative mobility, enhances compliance, and improves monitoring, thereby producing measurable environmental benefits. Policymakers can utilize these results to incorporate e-government reforms into national environmental strategies, prioritize urban areas with high pollution levels, and support digital capacity building to maximize environmental gains.
The digital economy (DE) is a nascent economic model with the potential to mitigate urban industrial pollution (UIP) while encouraging high-quality economic expansion. This paper utilized panel data from 258 Chinese cities and employed the fixed-effects model, the mechanism test model, panel threshold model, and the spatial Durbin model to undertake an empirical investigation into the DE on UIP emissions. The research outcomes suggest that developing the DE has a positive influence on UIP reduction and that the effect of the DE on UIP reduction varies significantly across regions with different levels of industrial development, digital infrastructure, and environmental regulatory intensity. Further examination shows that the DE can reduce UIP by promoting public environmental concern and green technology innovation. Additionally, when the DE is used as a threshold variable, the DE’s impact on UIP emissions exhibits a nonlinear double-threshold effect, with two key turning points of 0.0921 and 0.5515, which constitute a three-stage model of “weak effect—strong effect—weak effect”. When human resource leve is used as a threshold variable, the impact of the digital economy on reducing urban industrial pollution is gradually increasing and exhibits a nonlinear single threshold effect. Under different geographical and economic distance spatial weight matrices, the DE’s development has a substantial negative spatial spillover effect on UIP emissions. That is, developing the local DE can directly reduce local UIP and significantly suppress UIP in neighboring areas indirectly through information sharing and technology diffusion. The findings of this study provide important management insights for government managers to advance environmental governance and promote green development.
Mingzhao Xiong, Yize Li, Haoyi Qi et al.· Frontiers in Environmental S...· 0 citations
The National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone (NBDCPZ) constitutes a landmark institutional initiative designed to advance and deploy data elements while strengthening governance capacity for environmental sustainability and low-carbon transition. Drawing on a panel dataset covering 285 Chinese cities at or above the prefectural level over the 2005–2023 period, this study capitalizes on the sequential rollout of the NBDCPZ to establish a quasi-natural experimental design. It employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) design to examine the policy’s causal effects on urban environmental quality—specifically, its effectiveness in curbing air pollution and carbon emissions—and further identifies the underlying mechanisms driving these effects and sources of contextual heterogeneity. The results demonstrate that the policy yields substantial benefits in curbing urban pollution and advancing carbon reduction; this conclusion remains robust across multiple sensitivity checks. Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy achieves synergistic gains in pollution reduction and carbon mitigation by promoting green innovation and reducing energy consumption, as well as by fostering digital industry agglomeration and accelerating digital innovation. Heterogeneity analysis shows significant structural variation in policy effects: non-resource-based cities exhibit more pronounced carbon mitigation effects, whereas resource-based cities, large cities, and old industrial bases demonstrate stronger pollution control effects.
Shufen Yang, Luoshi Wu, Weiyong Zou et al.· Sustainability· 0 citations
Cities increasingly use resilience policies to manage climate risk, but it remains unclear how these policies alter firms’ green strategies. Using a difference-in-differences design, we analyze 2011–2023 panel data for A-share listed firms around China’s Climate-Resilient City Construction (CRCC) pilot. CRCC exposure is associated with a higher text-based measure of corporate green transformation. The estimate is stable in parallel-trends and placebo tests, alternative outcome measures, exclusions of confounding policies and shocks, alternative specifications, double machine learning, pre-policy propensity-score matching, and instrumental-variable estimation. Mechanism estimates are consistent with three channels through which CRCC may affect firm behavior. CRCC strengthens executive green cognition, redirects environmental spending toward prevention, and supports green technological and management innovation. By contrast, the estimate for end-of-pipe investment is small and statistically insignificant. A pooled interaction test finds differences across firm life-cycle stages. Comparisons by city size, exemplary-city status, and supply-chain resilience remain descriptive because their grouping indicators are unavailable for pooled re-estimation. Spatial estimates reveal limited, non-monotonic spillovers. Overall, the results indicate that an urban adaptation policy can influence firm strategy, subject to the text-based outcome and the sample of Chinese listed firms.
The coordinated reduction of pollutant and carbon emissions (CRPC) has become a central objective of urban environmental governance. Although smart city construction is primarily intended to advance digital urban transformation, its role in CRPC remains insufficiently understood. Using panel data for 259 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2022, this study examines whether smart city construction promotes CRPC. Exploiting the staggered rollout of the national smart city pilot policy, we estimate a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model to identify the policy effect. The results show that smart city construction significantly reduces both sulfur dioxide emission intensity and carbon emission intensity, indicating a clear CRPC effect. The findings remain robust to parallel-trend tests, placebo tests, propensity score matching, alternative variable specifications, and the inclusion of additional policy controls. Mechanism analyses based on the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework show that smart city construction promotes CRPC by stimulating green innovation and digital infrastructure development, advancing industrial upgrading and human capital accumulation, and strengthening ecological investment and pollution control capacity. Further analyses indicate that the effect is stronger in cities with more stringent environmental regulation, in growing cities, and in non-resource-based cities. Smart city construction also generates positive spillover effects across geographically proximate and economically connected cities. Overall, the findings show that smart city construction can serve as an important pathway toward integrated pollution and carbon governance.
Yan Bu, Xun Zhang, Yi Wu et al.· Carbon Footprints· 0 citations
Marketized data governance regimes condition public-data access on accreditation, compliance, and complementary assets, yet their spatial consequences remain unclear. Using a balanced panel of 251 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2020 to 2024, this paper examines China's Public Data Authorized Operation (PDAO) framework. Three findings emerge. First, PDAO adoption is associated with a positive average estimate for local enterprise stock, with especially large estimates for Tier-1 cities. Second, estimated effects follow pre-existing spatial structures, including the core–periphery hierarchy and the Hu Line. Third, the preferred Spatial Durbin and LeSage–Pace decompositions do not detect a statistically significant cross-city indirect effect. These findings show that the local economic effects associated with PDAO adoption are highly uneven across China's urban hierarchy. The observed gradient is consistent with a complementary-asset interpretation, although the research design does not separately identify this mechanism from other policy effects interacting with pre-existing urban endowments.
Yizhang Chu, Qi Chen· Journal of Applied Economics...· 0 citations
Climate shocks can raise firms’ energy use by disrupting production, triggering repeated equipment shutdowns and restarts, and requiring temporary operational adjustments. This study examines whether urban adaptation governance reduces these frictions. Using nonfinancial A‐share firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2012 to 2025, we construct a firm–year panel of disclosed physical energy inputs and exploit the staggered rollout of China's Climate Adaptation City Pilots. Firm and year fixed‐effects estimates show a significant decline in energy input intensity after cities enter the effective pilot period, with no systematic pretreatment differences. The result is robust to matched difference‐in‐differences, double machine learning, placebo timing, alternative measures, sample adjustments, and alternative policy‐timing specifications. Energy‐input and revenue‐side analyses indicate that the decline is primarily reflected in lower aggregate energy inputs rather than revenue expansion. The mechanism analysis provides evidence consistent with a pollution‐control practices channel. The effect is stronger for firms with greater energy dependence, firms in cities with higher baseline pollution pressure, and firms with lower pre‐existing environmental‐governance investment, but weakens as managerial environmental‐governance cognition and the breadth of city energy‐transition governance agendas increase. Urban risk governance can therefore influence firms’ real resource allocation by improving the operating conditions of production.
Shi Liang, Yu-Xin Long, Jun Xiao et al.· Annals of the New York Acade...· 0 citations