The impact of smart city pilots on ecological resilience: a perspective of five major urban agglomerations in eastern China

Abstract It is crucial to explore whether and how smart city pilots impact ecological resilience in the context of China’s high priority on ecological civilization and green development. In this study, we adopted the panel data of 58 cities in five major urban agglomerations in eastern China from 2005 to 2021 and used the time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) model and spatial DID model to empirically analyze the impact of smart city pilots on ecological resilience, their heterogeneity, and the spatial spillover effects. The main results are as follows: smart city pilots can substantially enhance urban ecological resilience, this conclusion still holds significantly after a series of robustness tests such as the parallel trend test, and the propensity score matching method. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of smart city pilots on ecological resilience is affected by infrastructure development and abundant resources. Compared with regional urban agglomerations and nonresource-based cities, the policy effects of national urban agglomerations and resource-based cities are relatively strong. However, smart city pilots have a negative spillover effect on ecological resilience of neighboring regions. The results of this study indicate the policy implications for the construction of smart cities and the enhancement of urban ecological resilience.