智慧城市与区县经济不平等——来自卫星反演的经验证据

Smart city and county economic inequality——Empirical evidence from satellite inversion

助推高质量发展的智慧城市建设能否缩小区县经济不平等?本文采用卫星反演的人均灯光强度数据计算中国2851个区县21年基尼系数,以中国智慧城市试点作为准自然实验,检验智慧城市建设对区县经济不平等的影响及其机制。研究发现:(1)中国智慧城市建设能够缩小区县经济不平等,结果经过检验后依然稳健;(2)异质性分析显示,城市规模小、经济发展好的区县,智慧城市建设有利于缩小经济不平等;(3)机制分析发现,智慧城市建设带来的技术效应通过提高区域创新水平来缩小区县经济不平等,配置效应通过均衡配置资本要素和边缘配置土地要素来缩小区县经济不平等。

Can the construction of smart cities that promote high-quality development narrow county economic inequality? We used per-capita light intensity data from satellite inversion to calculate 21-year Gini coefficients for 2,851 counties in China, and examined the impact of smart city on county economic inequality and its mechanism by taking China′s smart city pilot as a quasi-natural experiment. The findings are as follows:(1) Smart cities in China can reduce county economic inequality, and the results remain stable after testing;(2) Heterogeneity analysis shows that for counties with smaller city size and better economic development, smart city is more conducive to reducing economic inequality;(3) Mechanism analysis shows that the technology effect brought by smart city reduces the county economic inequality by improving the level of regional innovation, and the allocation effect reduces the county economic inequality by balanced allocation of capital factors and marginal allocation of land factors.