Macroeconomic uncertainty, high-level innovation, and urban green development performance in China

This study incorporates macroeconomic uncertainty and high-level innovation into the framework of urban green development performance analysis. The positive impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on high-level innovation is related to the economic level and geographical location of cities. In developed cities and coastal cities, positive incentives for high-level innovation depicted by invention patents and green technology patents are generated, but the impacts are not significant in less developed cities. The negative impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on green development performance of developed and coastal cities is not significant, but it has a more obvious inhibition effect in less developed cities; raising the proportion of high-level innovation helps to weaken this negative impact.