Modeling and evaluating economic and ecological operation efficiency of smart city pilots

This study investigates whether China's smart city pilots (SCPs) have promoted efficiency in cities' economic and ecological operations and proposes a directional distance function model for super efficiency. Our model captures the economic flexibility of smart cities in China by exploiting slack aspects. We employ this model and other methods to study SCPs in China at the prefecture level. The results show that SCPs have a positive effect on both economic and total ecological efficiency (incorporating resource consumption and pollution emissions). However, the environmental protection effect is not as strong as the resource-preserving effect. These results may be related to China's current stage of development. These findings can help local governments understand the development effect of smart cities and formulate their plans accordingly, while providing valuable insights into the development of a new theory in this field.