Does the Smart City Improve Public Service Delivery? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on a Smart City Pilot Program in China

Abstract Providing better public services has become an important issue in urban governance, and there is no consensus on how smart city establishment affects the delivery of urban public services. Based on the panel data of 160 prefecture-level cities in China from 2012 to 2019, and taking the smart city pilot program as a natural experiment, this paper discusses the impact of smart city establishment on urban public service. We find that smart city pilot programs significantly improve urban public service levels. The underlying influence mechanism is that the smart city first improves the extensive and intensive margins of public services, and then advances the total extent and diversity of public service provision. Furthermore, this study finds that the positive effects of smart city establishment on the provision of public services are significant only in high-income regions. These findings have significant implications for ways in which smart city establishment can improve the provision of urban public services.