智慧城市建设能否提升基本公共服务供给?——基于双重差分法的实证分析

Can the Construction of Smart Cities Improve the Provision of Basic Public Services?An Empirical Analysis Based on a Differences-in-Differences Model

在理论阐述智慧城市对基本公共服务供给影响的基础上,将我国2012年实施的第一批智慧城市试点视为一项准自然实验,基于2008—2019年173个地级市的面板数据,运用双重差分模型实证检验智慧城市建设对基本公共服务供给水平的影响,并对其异质性进行拓展分析。研究发现:智慧城市建设能够显著提升基本公共服务供给水平,且在经过倾向得分匹配和更换时间窗口这两项稳健性检验后依然成立;异质性分析显示,人口规模较大的城市,其智慧城市建设对基本公共服务供给水平的影响更大。因此,政府部门应履行好职能,持续发挥好智慧城市建设对于基本公共服务供给的提升作用,因地制宜地实行智慧城市建设方案,提供更为完善的基本公共服务。

Based on a theoretical explanation of the impact of smart city construction on the supply of basic public services,this paper takes the smart city pilot policy of China launched in 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment,using the panel data of 173 prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2019.This paper empirically tests the impact of smart city construction on the provision level of basic public services using a differences-indifferences model,and analyze the heterogeneity.The findings are as follows:the construction of smart cities can significantly improve the provision level of basic public services,and this result still holds after robustness tests such as the propensity score matching and changing time windows;heterogeneity analysis shows that the larger the population size of a city,the greater the impact of its smart city construction on the provision level of its basic public services.Therefore,government departments should perform their functions,give full play to the role of smart city construction in improving the supply of basic public services,implement differentiated smart city construction plans based on local conditions,and provide basic public services of higher quality.