Beautifying urban environment: Smart city construction and sustainable pollution control in China

Faced with the environmental pollution challenges brought by urbanization, smart city construction (SCC) offers a practical and viable pathway for environmental protection. This study treats China's SCC policy as a quasi-natural experiment, utilizing balanced panel data from 285 cities across the country spanning from 2003 to 2019. Through the multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) model, the influence of smart city initiatives on urban pollution emissions is systematically examined. Results demonstrate that SCC effectively control urban pollution emissions, leading to a 1.46% decrease in pollution levels in pilot cities. These findings are robust to various tests, including parallel trends analysis, placebo tests, Propensity Score Matching (PSM)-DID, alternative pollution calculation methods, pollution intensity adjustments, control for other policy interferences, and sample adjustments, alongside endogeneity tests using instrumental variables. SCC achieves pollution control through mechanisms that enhance urban technological innovation, facilitate industrial restructuring, and talent agglomeration and financial agglomeration. Heterogeneity analysis reveals a more pronounced impact in the eastern area, large cities, higher administrative levels, cities with superior digital infrastructure, and those with higher human capital levels and pollution severity. This research explores a practical approach towards achieving sustainable pollution control by optimizing technology, industrial structure, and human resources.