Research On The Impact Of Smart City Construction On The Supply And Equalization Of Basic Public Services

In the four decades development process of China’s reform and opening up,the overall economic development trend has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality development.The modernization of national system and capacity for governance has also been steadily advanced with the wide application of digital technology.However,under the new era of China’s development,the contradiction between people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development is still prominent.Especially,there is still much development space in seeking the steady improvement and balanced supply of basic public services such as education,medical,employment and culture,which are closely related to public life.To achieve the development of basic public services,as an important goal of people’s livelihood construction,is not only the inevitable choice for socialist countries to share social achievements,but also the urgent need to promote common prosperity and harmonious development and resolve social contradictions.Although financial support,fiscal expenditure transfer,special subsidies and overall development policy play vital roles in promoting the effective development of basic public services,which have not yet reflected the profound impact of the emerging driving forces of the era of innovative application of digital technology on the development of basic public services.In particular,whether the smart city construction model including various innovative applications of cities,has shown the positive effect of promoting the supply and equalization of the basic public services in the process of the deep integration with the production and supply of traditional basic public services through information technologies such as system interconnection,thorough perception and intelligent decision-making.We still need to find the answer from theory and reality.In the existing research,many scholars have conducted a lot of research on the construction of smart city to improve the development level of basic public services.While the construction of smart city represented by innovation has not been fully valued in the research and practice of basic public services development.The economic and technological innovation utility of smart city are discussed far more than its social utility.Whether the nearly ten years pilot construction of smart cities in China has really promoted the development of basic public services is still lack of strong empirical test.Therefore,the core issue of dissertation is to verify whether the smart city construction with the new generation of information technology has achieved a favorable impact on the development of basic public services.And how does the innovation effect generated by smart city construction affect the development of basic public services.Carrying out the empirical research on the impact of smart city construction on the development of basic public services can not only re-examine the effect of smart city construction,but also avoid its route from entering the stereotype of technology orientation and neglecting service objectives.It has very important theoretical value and practical significance for realizing the common prosperity and resolving the livelihood problems.This dissertation digs out the research questions from the realistic background and theoretical research of smart city construction and basic public services.Based on innovation theory,resource-based theory,public value theory and growth pole theory,as well as research methods such as comprehensive evaluation method,difference-indifference method and spatial econometric analysis,dissertation uses empirical data to scientifically test and explain the above research problems.The specific research contents and main conclusions are as follows:Starting from the public value theory,part 1 interprets the theoretical relationship between the supply level and equalization of basic public services from the dual perspective of efficiency and fairness.In addition,building a simultaneous evaluation system of subjective analytic hierarchy process and objective entropy weight method,taking into account the "rational man" hypothesis of subjective judgment of experts and scholars.And optimizing the combination weighting results through TOPSIS algorithm to scientifically evaluate the actual situation of the supply level of basic public services in various cities in China from 2003 to 2018.Finally,the Gini coefficient is used to form the provincial basic public service equalization index.The dissertation found that China’s basic public service supply level has significantly improved in the past 16 years,and the imbalance trend of basic public service has eased,but the equalization of basic public services in a large number of provinces is still in a gradual imbalance.Part 2,starting from the innovation theory,verified the role of smart city construction in promoting the supply level of basic public services by using DID analysis through the quasi natural experiment formed by the pilot policy of smart city.Along with,multiple robustness tests such as propensity score matching,counterfactual test,placebo test are used to deeply verify the research problems,and further analyze the heterogeneity and influence mechanism of the effect.The research shows that the construction of smart city supported by information technology has a significant positive effect on the improvement of the supply level of basic public services in China,and the research results are still reliable after multiple robustness tests.As for influence mechanism,technological innovation effect plays a very important intermediary role in various innovation effect paths.For cities that have established a smart city construction leading group,the mechanism of organizational innovation can be effectively reflected only after the local government issued the earmarked policy and planning for smart city.Part 3 uses the DID model to further reveal the impact of smart city construction on the equalization of basic public services.After multiple robustness tests,this part deeply explores the differential performance on regional heterogeneity,urban scale heterogeneity and primacy heterogeneity in promoting the equalization of basic public services.In addition,the mechanism of the impact of smart city construction on the equalization of basic public services is also a key issue worthy of verification.Research shows that smart city construction can not only improve the supply of basic public services,but also significantly improve the equalization of provincial basic public services through technological innovation,organizational innovation and resource allocation innovation.In terms of heterogeneity,the eastern region,large-scale cities and cities with low priority play a more significant role in improving the equalization of basic public services in the implementation of the smart city strategy.Part 4 uses the spatial dobbin model to explore the spatial spillover effect of smart city construction on the supply of basic public services in the geospatial environment,and forms the logical relationship between the supply and regional equalization of basic public services under the information strategy.Meanwhile,this part analyzes the heterogeneity of the spillover effect of public service space in smart cities in different economic regions of China.The research found that the construction of smart city has a significant spatial spillover effect on the improvement of the supply level of basic public services.The spatial effect of smart city construction on the supply level of basic public services is not consistent in different regions.The eastern cities show a trickle-down effect on the surrounding cities,while the central cities show a siphon effect on the surrounding cities,which is not conducive to the equalization of regional basic public services.