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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1463532
This article is part of the Research Topic Sustainable and Mission-oriented Innovation in Economic Systems and Governance for Equitable Global Health and Wellbeing View all 20 articles

Can Digital Governance Stimulate Green Development? Evidence from the Program of "Pilot Cities regarding Information for Public Well-being" in China

Provisionally accepted
Xuxin Zou Xuxin Zou 1Jiadi Min Jiadi Min 1Shuang Meng Shuang Meng 2*
  • 1 Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 2 Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Digital governance is an important goal of government digital transformation, and the policy of "National Pilot Cities for the Benefit of the People with Information" is an important initiative to promote the reform of government governance system and realize green development. Based on the panel data of 282 cities in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper analyzes the mechanism and path of the impact of digital governance on green development using the "National Pilot Cities for the Benefit of the People's Information" policy as a quasinatural experiment, using the double-difference model and mediation effect model. The results show that digital governance can significantly promote green development, and the path of influence is the advanced industrial structure and the rationalization of industrial structure, i.e., digital governance can promote the green development of the city by enhancing the advanced industrial structure and the rationalization of industrial structure. In addition, there is obvious heterogeneity in the impact of digital governance on green development, which is stronger in economically developed cities than in economically backward cities, and in large cities than in small and medium-sized cities. Therefore, the relevant departments should continue to optimize the pilot policy of information benefit for the people, strive to improve the government's digital governance capacity, focus on economically backward cities and small and medium-sized cities, actively cultivate the green development capacity, promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, and vigorously support cross-regional exchanges and cooperation, so as to jointly achieve green and high-quality development.

    Keywords: digital governance, Green development, Industrial structure, green innovation, Entrepreneurial vitality

    Received: 12 Jul 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zou, Min and Meng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shuang Meng, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.