Since the expansion of university enrollment in 1999, Chinese higher education institutions have faced pressure for spatial expansion, leading to the establishment of new campuses across various regions. Concurrently, local governments have aimed to stimulate regional economic growth by attracting these new university campuses. This study employs a localized spatial difference-in-differences (Donuts DiD) method and a convolutional neural network-based counterfactual matching spatial Difference-in-Differences (CNN-Matching Donuts DiD) approach to analyze the impact of establishing “Double First-Class” university campuses on local economic growth from the perspective of location-oriented policies. The findings indicate that the establishment of new campuses has indeed promoted the growth of local economic activities.However, its effect on enhancing the commercial value of surrounding land and housing is relatively limited. The primary reasons are that, although the new campuses have stimulated local knowledge spillover activities, driven the transformation of local industrial structures, and facilitated the agglomeration of high-tech industries, the surrounding areas still lack adequate local commercial services and amenities, making it difficult to further amplify the positive externalities of the new campuses on a larger geographical scale. Additionally, the development model wherein local governments allocate substantial real estate land may also be a significant influencing factor. This research provides empirical support for promoting the coordinated and interactive development of future university campuses and urban regions in China.

This study analyzes the progress, development trends, key challenges, and implementation pathways of new-type urbanization through data analytics and field investigations. The findings reveal that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the new-type urbanization strategy has been steadily implemented with historic achievements. At present, urbanization has entered a pivotal phase characterized by moderated growth rates and quality enhancement, with increased emphasis on people-centered development. Emerging trends include: heightened prominence of citizenization, untapped potential for proximity-based urbanization in central and western regions, and accelerated population clustering in metropolitan areas. However, new-type urbanization still faces problems, such as inadequate quality of citizenization, weak industrial carrying capacity, insufficient metropolitan integration, and deficiencies in urban safety resilience. Accordingly, this study proposes leveraging the current window of strong urbanization momentum to prioritize people -centered development, strengthen industrial foundations, optimize spatial configurations, and address systemic vulnerabilities. Specifically, it is recommended to accelerate four major initiatives: citizenization of rural migrant populations, urbanization upgrading in high-potential regions, cultivation of modern metropolitan clusters, and urban renewal with enhanced safety resilience. These measures aim to systematically improve urbanization quality and ensure equitable sharing of modernization dividends among all residents.

The digital governance platform, as an important carrier for bridging online and offline collaborative actions in the context of digital transformation, is an essential part of the Digital China initiative. As a significant measure to enhance the collaborative efficiency of social governance, the digital social governance platform focuses on “governance resource integration” and “governance goal coordination” as its key objectives. Through the study of the digital social governance platform in X City, it was found that by utilizing the digital platform for information aggregation and risk identification, the overall control of the governance scenario can be achieved. Additionally, through standardized information management and targeted task scheduling, dynamic collaboration of governance actions can be realized. Relying on digital technology and organizational arrangements, it enables relevant participants to have an online “virtual presence” and offline “network construction” structure within the governance field. These two elements together support the platform’s internal operational logic. However, due to the hindrance caused by the contradictions in the communication relationships during platform operations, the overall collaborative effect still has room for further improvement.

In the context of the global digitalization wave, the integration of digital economy and real economy has emerged as a vital engine for high-quality economic development and a critical pathway for promoting the green transformation of resource-based cities.Using panel data from 115 resource-based cities in China from 2013 to 2022, this paper employs a fixed-effects model to empirically examine the impact of the integration of digital economy and real economy on the green transformation of resource-based cities. Additionally, the TOE framework is introduced to analyze the underlying mechanisms. The study finds that the integration of digital economy and real economy significantly promotes the green transformation of resource-based cities. This impact manifests through technology-driven effects, organizational optimization effects, and environmental catalytic effects. Moreover, the impact of the integration of digital economy and real economy on green transformation exhibits significant heterogeneity, with a stronger promoting effect in declining cities, non-old industrial base cities, and non-environmentally focused cities, while the impact is not significant in growing cities. The conclusions of this study provide valuable insights for resource-based cities in overcoming the “resource curse” and achieving sustainable development.

This paper investigates the potential impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on urban inclusive green growth and its mechanism, using panel-matched data from 248 prefecture-level cities and listed enterprises of 2011-2022. The findings reveal that CSR promotes urban inclusive green growth, which is statistically and economically significant. CSR promotes urban green technology innovation and the formation of a healthy labour market, thereby greatly contributing to urban inclusive green growth. Government-enterprise value co-creation substantially expands the boundaries and effectiveness of CSR for urban inclusive green growth, providing insights into correctly resolving the trade-offs between economic, environmental, and social systems. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of CSR on urban inclusive green growth varies with the willingness of enterprises to disclose social responsibility information, property rights nature and manager traits, etc. Moreover, the higher the media attention of enterprises and the marketisation level of the cities they are in, the more significant the promoting effect of CSR on urban inclusive green growth. Based on this, a series of countermeasures and suggestions are proposed from the aspects of improving corporate governance, strengthening government enterprise collaboration, attaching importance to external environmental factors, and coordinating market development.

This study employs the establishment of the data managment agency as a quasi-natural experiment to construct a theoretical model illustrating how government data governance drives corporate green innovation. Using panel data from listed enterprises from 2010 to 2024 and applying a uble Machine Learning(DML) approach, we empirically find the results as following: Firstly, government data governance significantly enhances enterprise green innovation efficiency. Secondly, the green innovation promotion effect is more pronounced in highly digitalized enterprises, monopolistic industries, and central cities. Thirdly, government data governance improves green innovation efficiency through supporting digital technology R&D, optimizing digital management organizations, and enhancing the digital ecosystem. This study provides practical strategies for governments to manage data elements effectively and offers a theoretical basis for advancing corporate green transformation.

This study investigates the impact and underlying mechanisms of digital technology cooperation on urban economic resilience, which is of great significance for bridging the regional digital divide and enhancing economic resilience through the digital economy. Utilizing panel data from 279 cities in China spanning the period from 2007 to 2021, a comprehensive dataset of inter-city digital technology cooperation patents was constructed to reveal the impact and underlying mechanisms of digital technology cooperation on urban economic resilience. Research shows that digital technology cooperation significantly boosts urban economic resilience, which remains robust across various robustness checks. Mechanism analysis indicates that this cooperation enhances urban economic resilience through multiple pathways, including improving innovation quality, curbing resource misallocation, and enhancing human capital. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the positive impact of digital technology cooperation is more pronounced in eastern regions, urban agglomerations, and non-old industrial base cities. Additionally, cities with stronger intellectual property protection, greater high-skilled talent agglomeration, and more advanced digital infrastructure benefit more significantly from such cooperation.

Using a quasi-natural experiment of newly opened subway lines and data from 16571 homogeneous 1 square kilometer geographical units in Beijing, this study attempts to examine the impact of subway lines on urban boundaries and spatial structure from a micro perspective. We found that: Adding one subway station can expand the built-up area of the city by 2.741 km²; With the increase of subway lines, the trend of urban decentralization and decentralization has become apparent, and the spatial structure of cities has gradually shifted from “single center cities” to “multi-center cities”; The heterogeneity of location selection between productive service industries and industrial enterprises is an important mechanism leading to the evolution of urban structure. The increase in land prices caused by the addition of new routes leads to the agglomeration of productive service industries towards the central area, and the relocation of industrial areas to peripheral areas. The resulting separation of work and residence promotes the re accumulation of life service industries around the new residential center, thus forming a multi-center structural change trend. Based on the above conclusions, the article provides policy insights for Beijing to further optimize spatial structure and effectively expand urban boundaries through the use of subway lines.

The role of digitalization and ecological approaches in fostering green technological innovation is a pivotal issue in the context of low-carbon development. By leveraging panel data from 278 prefecture-level cities in China over the period 2006 to 2019, this study quantifies energy-saving technological progress and employs a multi-period DID method to evaluate the impact of dual-pilot policies that integrate the smart cities and National Eco-industrial Park. The findings indicate that dual-pilot policies significantly surpass single-policy interventions in promoting energy efficiency innovations, with the underlying mechanism attributed to industrial co-agglomeration between manufacturing and producer/consumer services. Although firms in dual-pilot cities encounter heightened financing constraints, they demonstrate increased proactive adoption of environmental responsibilities. Moderating effect analysis further reveals that policy effectiveness is enhanced in regions characterized by strong policy incentives, stringent environmental regulations, and advanced financial infrastructure. The study concludes that enhancing corporate awareness of low-carbon practices and exploring integrated digital and ecological industrial development models represent effective strategies for achieving the “dual carbon” goals.