Descriptive statistics.

The world’s major economies are striving to control carbon emissions and avoid irreversible impacts on the natural environment. Therefore, innovative green technologies are crucial for both government departments and the private sector as an important way to address carbon emissions. This study aims to investigate the link between the government’s smart city construction and corporate green innovation and optimize the policy guidelines that drive green innovation in enterprises. This study analyzes 6,104 panels of Chinese listed companies from 2007–2019. An approach called the Differences-in-Differences model was applied to evaluate hypotheses. The empirical results suggest that smart city pilots drove substantial green innovation in businesses. The marketization process has a moderating effect on the impact of smart city pilots on substantive green innovation in enterprises. Moreover, marketization process has a threshold effect in smart city pilots influencing the substantive green innovation of enterprises, and the effect of smart city drivers influencing the substantive green innovation of enterprises increases significantly when regional marketization process reaches a certain level. The findings of this study provide valuable guidance for policy designers to promote corporate green innovation at both the hardware facility level and the market system level of cities when developing policies related to green innovation.

全球主要经济体均致力于控制碳排放，规避对自然环境造成不可逆影响。因此，创新绿色技术作为应对碳排放的重要路径，对政府部门与私营部门均至关重要。本研究旨在探究政府智慧城市（smart city）建设与企业绿色创新之间的关联，并优化驱动企业绿色创新的政策指引。本研究选取2007-2019年中国上市公司的6104组面板数据进行分析，采用双重差分模型（Differences-in-Differences model）对研究假设进行检验。实证结果表明，智慧城市试点显著推动了企业绿色创新水平提升。市场化进程对智慧城市试点影响企业实质性绿色创新的效应具有调节作用。此外，市场化进程在智慧城市试点影响企业实质性绿色创新的过程中存在门槛效应：当区域市场化进程达到特定水平时，智慧城市试点对企业实质性绿色创新的推动作用会显著增强。本研究结论可为政策制定者在制定绿色创新相关政策时，从城市硬件设施建设与市场制度完善两个维度推动企业绿色创新提供有益参考。