Does innovative city building promote green logistics efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment with 285 cities

The logistics industry created serious environmental pollution problems in China, and whether innovation-driven development can promote urban green logistics remains is unclear. We construct indicators of input, desirable output, and undesirable output and use an SBM-DEA model based on slack variable measurement to accurately measure 285 Chinese cities' green logistics efficiency. Second, using the balanced panel statistics of these 285 cities from 2005 to 2019, we take the pilot policy of innovative cities as a quasi-natural experiment and implement a time-varying difference-in-differences simulation to discover its impact on green logistics efficiency. The results show that, first, innovative cities can effectively improve the efficiency of green logistics at a statistically significant level. Second, the innovative cities pilot policy can drive green logistics efficiency considering regional, city scale, and circulation network heterogeneity. The policy additionally plays a powerful part in boosting green logistics efficiency, especially in western, northern, large-scale, and circulation node cities. Third, the innovative city strategy has an influence on the effectiveness of green logistics by way of increasing the degree of green technology innovation and enhancing the government's strategic direction. We present new empirical evidence for policy implementation and useful information for promoting urban innovation construction, pollution prevention, emission reduction, and the creation of a wonderful China.