IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v31y2023i2p698-715.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Innovative urban design for low‐carbon sustainable development: Evidence from China's innovative city pilots

Author

Listed:
  • Nana Jiang
  • Wei Jiang
  • Haibo Chen

Abstract

As a sustainable urban design, innovative city pilots offer a way for developing countries to achieve carbon reduction goals. To date, a total of 78 innovative cities have been established in China. In this context, this study examines whether innovative city construction can contribute to meet carbon mitigation targets. On the basis of expounding the mechanism of innovative city pilots on carbon emissions, the multiperiod difference in differences method is applied to investigate the average treatment effect and the mediating effect model is used to validate the transmission mechanism. The results show that innovative city pilots significantly reduce carbon emissions. Compared to nonpilot areas, the pilot areas reduce carbon emissions by 15%. Specifically, technological innovation is the primary channels for innovative city pilots to influence carbon emissions but industrial structure effect does not work. Furthermore, the superimposed effect analysis indicates that the carbon reduction effect of the city as both innovative city pilot and other pilot (low‐carbon pilot, broadband China pilot, intellectual property pilot) is greater than that of a single pilot. Results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that carbon mitigation efforts are more effective in central and western cities, nonmega cities, resource‐based cities and cities with high human capital and financial development. In addition, the pilot policy has a positive spatial spillover effects on carbon reduction in cities with geographical proximity and economic ties. These results can contribute to precisely assess the environment benefits of promoting innovative city pilot projects and provide a decision making reference for fighting climate change in the era of knowledge economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Nana Jiang & Wei Jiang & Haibo Chen, 2023. "Innovative urban design for low‐carbon sustainable development: Evidence from China's innovative city pilots," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 698-715, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:31:y:2023:i:2:p:698-715
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2413
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2413?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Leonardo Bursztyn & David Hemous, 2012. "The Environment and Directed Technical Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 131-166, February.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    3. Sweet, Cassandra Mehlig & Eterovic Maggio, Dalibor Sacha, 2015. "Do Stronger Intellectual Property Rights Increase Innovation?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 665-677.
    4. Shao, Shuai & Liu, Jianghua & Geng, Yong & Miao, Zhuang & Yang, Yingchun, 2016. "Uncovering driving factors of carbon emissions from China’s mining sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 220-238.
    5. Halkos, George E. & Paizanos, Epameinondas Α., 2016. "The effects of fiscal policy on CO2 emissions: Evidence from the U.S.A," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 317-328.
    6. Richard S. J. Tol, 2014. "Correction and Update: The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 221-226, Spring.
    7. Fonseca, Tiago & de Faria, Pedro & Lima, Francisco, 2019. "Human capital and innovation: the importance of the optimal organizational task structure," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 616-627.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2006. "Distance to Frontier, Selection, and Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 37-74, March.
    9. Cooke, Philip & Gomez Uranga, Mikel & Etxebarria, Goio, 1997. "Regional innovation systems: Institutional and organisational dimensions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 475-491, December.
    10. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    11. Zhou, Guanghui & Chung, William & Zhang, Xiliang, 2013. "A study of carbon dioxide emissions performance of China's transport sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 302-314.
    12. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    13. Tan, Sieting & Yang, Jin & Yan, Jinyue & Lee, Chewtin & Hashim, Haslenda & Chen, Bin, 2017. "A holistic low carbon city indicator framework for sustainable development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1919-1930.
    14. Tanaka, Shinsuke, 2015. "Environmental regulations on air pollution in China and their impact on infant mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 90-103.
    15. Bergek, Anna & Berggren, Christian, 2014. "The impact of environmental policy instruments on innovation: A review of energy and automotive industry studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 112-123.
    16. Jones, Donald W., 1991. "How urbanization affects energy-use in developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 621-630, September.
    17. Zhu, Huiming & Duan, Lijun & Guo, Yawei & Yu, Keming, 2016. "The effects of FDI, economic growth and energy consumption on carbon emissions in ASEAN-5: Evidence from panel quantile regression," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 237-248.
    18. Houkai WEI, 2015. "The Administrative Hierarchy and Growth of Urban Scale in China," Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies (CJUES), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(01), pages 1-21.
    19. Xu, Le & Fan, Meiting & Yang, Lili & Shao, Shuai, 2021. "Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    20. Poh Kam Wong & Yuen Ping Ho & Singh, Annette, 2005. "Singapore as an innovative city in East Asia : an explorative study of the perspectives of innovative industries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3568, The World Bank.
    21. Andries Nentjes & Doede Wiersma, 1988. "Innovation and Pollution Control," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(3/4), pages 51-70, March.
    22. Cheng, Zhonghua & Li, Xiang & Wang, Meixiao, 2021. "Resource curse and green economic growth," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    23. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.
    24. Lee, Jung Wan, 2013. "The contribution of foreign direct investment to clean energy use, carbon emissions and economic growth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 483-489.
    25. Furukawa, Yuichi, 2010. "Intellectual property protection and innovation: an inverted-U relationship," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 99-101, November.
    26. Wang, Keying & Wu, Meng & Sun, Yongping & Shi, Xunpeng & Sun, Ao & Zhang, Ping, 2019. "Resource abundance, industrial structure, and regional carbon emissions efficiency in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 203-214.
    27. Yu, Fan & Xiao, De & Chang, Meng-Shiuh, 2021. "The impact of carbon emission trading schemes on urban-rural income inequality in China: A multi-period difference-in-differences method," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    28. Arthur, W. Brian, 2007. "The structure of invention," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 274-287, March.
    29. Xie, Rui & Fang, Jiayu & Liu, Cenjie, 2017. "The effects of transportation infrastructure on urban carbon emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 199-207.
    30. Tang, Jianmin, 2006. "Competition and innovation behaviour," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 68-82, February.
    31. Faems, Dries & Subramanian, Annapoornima M., 2013. "R&D manpower and technological performance: The impact of demographic and task-related diversity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1624-1633.
    32. Li, Pei & Lu, Yi & Wang, Jin, 2016. "Does flattening government improve economic performance? Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 18-37.
    33. Kevin Zhu & Kenneth L. Kraemer & Sean Xu, 2006. "The Process of Innovation Assimilation by Firms in Different Countries: A Technology Diffusion Perspective on E-Business," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(10), pages 1557-1576, October.
    34. Wu, Haitao & Hao, Yu & Ren, Siyu & Yang, Xiaodong & Xie, Guo, 2021. "Does internet development improve green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    35. Mikesell, Raymond F, 1997. "Explaining the resource curse, with special reference to mineral-exporting countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 191-199, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Yaobin & Deng, Weifeng & Wen, Huwei & Li, Shuoshuo, 2024. "Promoting green technology innovation through policy synergy: Evidence from the dual pilot policy of low-carbon city and innovative city," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 957-977.
    2. Wei Jiang & Nana Jiang, 2025. "From sustainable development towards resilience: Does digital finance matter in enhancing ecological resilience?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 2535-2552, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pan, Minjie & Zhao, Xin & lv, Kangjuan & Rosak-Szyrocka, Joanna & Mentel, Grzegorz & Truskolaski, Tadeusz, 2023. "Internet development and carbon emission-reduction in the era of digitalization: Where will resource-based cities go?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Guo, Qingbin & Wang, Yong & Dong, Xiaobin, 2022. "Effects of smart city construction on energy saving and CO2 emission reduction: Evidence from China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    3. Fang, Wen Shwo & Miller, Stephen M. & Yeh, Chih-Chuan, 2012. "The effect of ESCOs on energy use," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 558-568.
    4. Adão, Bernardino & Narajabad, Borghan & Temzelides, Ted, 2024. "Renewable technology adoption costs and economic growth," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Zhang, Yiren & Ran, Congjing, 2023. "Effect of digital economy on air pollution in China? New evidence from the “National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Area” policy," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 986-1004.
    6. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    7. Manal Ayyad Dhif Alshammry & Saqib Muneer, 2023. "The influence of economic development, capital formation, and internet use on environmental degradation in Saudi Arabia," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    8. Adhitya Wardhono & Panji Tirta Nirwana Putra & M. Abd. Nasir, 2016. "Causal study of macroeconomic indicators on carbon dioxide emission in ASEAN 5," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 15-31.
    9. Lennox, James A. & Witajewski-Baltvilks, Jan, 2017. "Directed technical change with capital-embodied technologies: Implications for climate policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 400-409.
    10. Canepa, Alessandra, "undated". "Two Decades On: Assessing the Impact of the Copenhagen Criteria on Environmental Performance in the 2004 EU Accession Countries," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202501, University of Turin.
    11. Zihan Hu & Min Wu & Dan Yang & Tao Luo & Yihao Tian, 2024. "How Resource-Exhausted Cities Get Out of the Innovation Bottom? Evidence from China," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-22, July.
    12. Hongfeng Zhang & Lu Huang & Yan Zhu & Hongyun Si & Xu He, 2021. "Does Low-Carbon City Construction Improve Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-21, November.
    13. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Haouas, Ilham & Hoang, Thi Hong Van, 2019. "Economic growth and environmental degradation in Vietnam: Is the environmental Kuznets curve a complete picture?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-218.
    14. Koffi M. Adji & Aklesso Y. G. Egbendewe & Boris O. K. Lokonon, 2022. "Potential impacts of sustainable agricultural practices on smallholders' behavior in developing countries: Evidence from Togo," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(1), pages 73-87, February.
    15. Zhong, Shen & Zhou, Zhicheng & Gao, Wei, 2025. "Impact of regional finance reform and innovation policies on green innovation in pilot cities: A quasi-natural experiment," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 888-911.
    16. Long Qian & Xiaolin Xu & Yunjie Zhou & Ying Sun & Duoliang Ma, 2023. "Carbon Emission Reduction Effects of the Smart City Pilot Policy in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-24, March.
    17. Yan Zhao & Hui Sun & Xuechao Xia & Dianyuan Ma, 2023. "Can R&D Intensity Reduce Carbon Emissions Intensity? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-24, January.
    18. Luo, Shiyue & Yu, Mengyao & Dong, Yilan & Hao, Yu & Li, Changping & Wu, Haitao, 2024. "Toward urban high-quality development: Evidence from more intelligent Chinese cities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    19. Nie, Song, 2024. "Does intellectual property rights protection matter for low-carbon transition? The role of institutional incentives," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    20. Xu, Lan & Yang, Jun & Cheng, Jixin & Dong, Hanghang, 2022. "How has China's low-carbon city pilot policy influenced its CO2 abatement costs? Analysis from the perspective of the shadow price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:31:y:2023:i:2:p:698-715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.