Xiaowei Ma
57607522800
Publications - 7
Harnessing artificial intelligence for urban economic resilience
Publication Name: Applied Economics
Publication Date: 2026-01-01
Volume: 58
Issue: 25
Page Range: 4955-4974
Description:
Amid escalating global economic uncertainty, a comprehensive analysis of the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) development on urban economic resilience (UER) is crucial for promoting sustainable global economic development. This study utilizes panel data from 284 Chinese cities from 2010 to 2022 to empirically test the influence of urban AI on UER and its role mechanism by using the fixed-effects, mediating-effects, and moderating-effects models. The study reveals that AI significantly enhances UER, with an improvement of 7.44%. Harnessing AI for UER remains valid even after conducting the robustness and endogeneity tests. Mechanism analysis discovered that AI enhances UER by increasing urban innovation ability. Industrial structure and wage structure positively moderate the effect of AI on UER. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the improvement effect of AI level on UER is more evident in large (7.49% increase), southern (5.11% increase), non-resource-based (10.84% increase), and high-economic cities (11.17% increase). This paper discusses the path selection from an AI perspective to enhance UER, which provides a useful reference for cities seeking to navigate the new wave of technological revolution.
Open Access: Yes
Technological innovation, industrial structure upgrading and mining energy efficiency: An analysis based on the super-efficient EBM model
Publication Name: Resources Policy
Publication Date: 2024-11-01
Volume: 98
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
The sustainable development of the mining industry is essential for economic growth. However, this practice necessitates environmental protection and social sustainability. This study uses the super-efficient epsilon-based measure (EBM) model to measure mining energy efficiency (MEE) based on panel data for 30 provinces from 2007 to 2021 in China. We empirically examined the effects of technological innovation (TEC) on MEE and the mediating and threshold effects of industrial structure upgrading (IS) between the two through the fixed, mediating, and threshold effects models. The study findings show that TEC is conducive to enhancing MEE and that this role is relatively robust regarding the mechanism of action. TEC enhances the MEE industry through the IS. We observed the impact of TEC on MEE in the threshold effect of IS—as the level of IS rises, the role of TEC on MEE shows an increasing marginal effect. Therefore, the government should encourage the construction and innovation of technology to optimise the industrial structure and layout and improve energy efficiency in the regional mining industry. This study is a useful supplement to the study of MEE and provides new perspectives and methods for understanding and improving MEE. Meanwhile, the study results provide an important reference for the government to formulate long-term planning and policies for mining development, which is of great significance for optimising the structure of mining resources and improving MEE in the region.
Open Access: Yes
Role of energy natural resource productivity and environmental taxation in controlling environmental pollution: Policy-based analysis for regions
Publication Name: Geological Journal
Publication Date: 2024-11-01
Volume: 59
Issue: 11
Page Range: 3068-3079
Description:
The present study explores the impact of energy natural resource productivity and environmental tax on environmental sustainability in six major CO2 -emitting economies: the Euro Area, China, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, from 1997 to 2019. This analysis aims to reveal novel findings and implications for different energy natural resource productivity types and environmental regulations. We employed data regarding leading national and regional CO2 emitters from 1997 to 2020 to conduct an empirical analysis using the panel non-linear auto-regressive distributed lag (NARDL) and panel quantile ARDL (QARDL) methods. The results show that energy natural resource productivity and environmental tax are crucial components in reducing CO2 emissions by controlling for innovation technology and renewable energy consumption. The main findings demonstrate that the impact is stronger in the presence of increased energy natural resource productivity and vice versa. These findings have novel implications for sustainable development and carbon neutrality.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1002/gj.5047
New development: E-government, open data and citizen participation for G20 sustainable development
Publication Name: Public Money and Management
Publication Date: 2026-01-01
Volume: 46
Issue: 5
Page Range: 648-652
Description:
IMPACT: This article examines how the development of e-government (EGDI), open data, and citizen participation (EPI) jointly influence the G20 countries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). EGDI is shown to have a positive influence on progress towards delivering the SDGs. Data openness and EPI further strengthen this effect. The strongest impact emerges under conditions of simultaneous implementation. The findings offer actionable insights for public sector accountants, auditors, policy-makers, and digital government strategists concerned with digital reform and sustainable development.
Open Access: Yes
Low-carbon governance and urban energy Transition: A quasi-natural experiment on China's dual-pilot policies from the perspective of geopolitical risk
Publication Name: Energy Policy
Publication Date: 2026-10-01
Volume: 217
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Amid intensifying geopolitical fragmentation, growing energy security uncertainty, and increasingly complex external constraints on low-carbon transformation, advancing urban energy transition (UET) through the coordination of multiple environmental regulations has become a critical issue in green development. This study exploits the overlapping implementation of the Low-Carbon City Pilot policy and the Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Drawing on panel data for 283 Chinese cities from 2006 to 2024 and a comprehensive UET index, we employ a multi-period difference-in-differences model to identify the effect of the dual-pilot policies (DPPs) on UET. The results show that the DPPs significantly promote UET, and this finding remains robust across a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analyses indicate that the policy effect operates primarily through improved resource allocation and innovation upgrading, with both channels becoming more pronounced in cities facing higher geopolitical risk exposure. Further analysis shows that the DPPs have stronger effects in non-resource-based, non-old-industrial, non-transportation hub, and weakly regulated cities. In addition, geopolitical risk, industrial foundations, and innovation talent reserves shape the extent to which the DPPs are translated into actual transition performance. We also find that, while the DPPs improve the energy transition performance of pilot cities, they generate negative spatial spillover effects in neighboring areas, manifested in industrial relocation, higher industrial electricity consumption, and greater pollution emission pressure. Overall, the synergy among multiple environmental regulations improves UET, but its effects are context-dependent and may involve spatial reallocation. Stronger policy coordination and regional governance are therefore needed to enhance the resilience of UET.
Open Access: Yes
The Impact of Urban Land Use Patterns on the Synergy of Pollution Reduction and Carbon Mitigation
Publication Name: Land Degradation and Development
Publication Date: 2026-08-30
Volume: 37
Issue: 14
Page Range: 10187-10204
Description:
To tackle global climate change and fulfill China's dual carbon objectives, the coordinated abatement of pollution and carbon emissions has emerged as a pivotal focus for sustainable urban development. Land use patterns and pollutant emissions are deeply connected within cities, making them a crucial lever for advancing synergistic pollution and carbon reduction. To investigate this relationship, this study constructs a synergy index (Syg) and a territorial land use compactness index (TD) using the Entropy Weighted TOPSIS method based on land raster data from 2012 to 2023, LandScan population raster data, and prefecture-level city panel data. The findings indicate that the compactness of urban land use patterns positively influences the synergistic effects of pollution and carbon emissions reduction. This conclusion remains valid after undergoing benchmark regression analysis, robustness testing, and endogeneity treatment. Regarding the operational mechanism, the compactness of urban land use patterns primarily exerts its effects through two pathways: the aggregation of innovative factors and overall industrial structure upgrading. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the synergistic effects of pollution and carbon emission reduction are more pronounced in eastern and western cities, non-transport hub cities, non-resource-based cities, and mature resource cities. Thus, it is recommended that differentiated land policies and green innovation clusters be established, and that a synergistic assessment system for land use, as well as pollution and carbon emission reduction, be developed to help achieve the dual carbon goals.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.1002/ldr.70763
In the Context of China’s Mineral Resource Scarcity: How Does Digitalization Promote Low-carbon Transformation of Corporate Energy?
Publication Name: Politicka Ekonomie
Publication Date: 2025-01-01
Volume: 73
Issue: 5
Page Range: 839-867
Description:
In the context of growing global energy demand and advancing climate change, digital technologies offer opportunities for a low-carbon energy transition. Through such technologies, including big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, digitalization enables intelligent optimization, flexible management and efficient operation of energy systems, access to renewable energy, and reducing both energy consumption and carbon emissions. Grounded in the data of listed companies from 2011 to 2020, this study discusses the influence of enterprise digitalization on the low-carbon energy transition. The results show that enterprises’ digital development will boost their low-carbon energy transformation effectively. Digitalization promotes enterprises to achieve this transformation by aiding them in improving green technology innovation, optimizing supply chains and improving internal control level. In addition, a heterogeneity analysis of environmental regulation shows that in regions with strong environmental regulation, the promotion effect of enterprise digitalization on low-carbon energy transformation is more significant. The regional heterogeneity in the results suggests that eastern and central enterprises have a stronger promotion effect on enterprise energy low-carbon transformation in digital transformation. Therefore, such transformations should be regarded as important, and they should be incorporated into environmental protection policy. This would include promoting low-carbon technology innovation, combining environmental protection regulation with carbon emission reduction and implementing suggestions for reducing carbon emissions and sustainable development goals.
Open Access: Yes
