Does the Establishment of National New Areas Improve Urban Ecological Efficiency? Empirical Evidence Based on Staggered DID Model

Jingbin Wang, Huiling Qiao, Jing Liu and Bo Li ()
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Jingbin Wang: School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
Huiling Qiao: School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
Jing Liu: School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
Bo Li: School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-21

Abstract: The environmental effects of national new areas have been an important topic but received little attention in academia. This study conducts a quasi-natural experiment using panel data of China’s 282 prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2019, and evaluates the establishment of national new areas on urban ecological efficiency using the staggered difference-in-difference (DID) method, tests the robustness, and further examines the influential mechanism and urban heterogeneity of the empirical results. The results show that the establishment of national new areas has significantly improved urban eco-efficiency. Moreover, the mechanism analysis of the influences shows that national new areas improve urban eco-efficiency by improving urbanization level and urban transportation infrastructure. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis of cities shows that national new areas of cities in eastern and central regions are both significantly improving urban eco-efficiency, while those in western and northeastern regions are not. Furthermore, the promotion effect in the regions of “one new area in one city” model is better than that in “one new area in two cities” model; national new areas in non-resource-based cities show more positive effects on promoting urban eco-efficiency than those in resource-based cities. The conclusions reliably evaluate the results of the current construction of national new areas and provide feasible suggestions for further implementation of the related policy to balance economic development and environmental protection.

Keywords: national new area; urban ecological efficiency; staggered DID model; urbanization level; urban transportation infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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