Government digital governance and urban green economic efficiency in China

Nowadays, widespread application and continuous advancement of digital technologies have made the digital governance become one of the dominant themes in the transformation of worldwide governments. This paper explores the impact of government digital governance on urban green economic efficiency (GEF), focusing on the "Internet + Government Services" pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment in China, by panel dataset of China's cities from 2010 to 2022 and employing a difference-in-differences approach. This paper reveals that digital governance significantly enhances urban GEF, validated by parallel trend test, placebo test, instrumental variable method, double machine learning, elimination of alternative factors and disturbing policies. However, this effect varies across the different factors of geographical location, resource endowment, urban scale, economic vitality, and environment protection. Mechanism analysis suggests that digital governance facilitates green development by optimizing industrial structure, improving green innovation, and strengthening public environmental awareness. Notably, government digital governance gives play to spatial heterogeneity spillover effects on surrounding cities. These results provide valuable insights for policymakers aiming to balance digitalization innovation with sustainability goals, emphasizing the role of governance transformation in fostering a greener economy.