In this paper, we use the panel data of 281 cities in China from 2005 to 2020 for capturing the factors driving urban inclusive growth (IG). In doing this, we employ the BP neural network algorithm combined with the DEA model to measure the urban inclusive growth efficiency (IGE). Furthermore, a nest of machine learning (ML) algorithms are introduced to explore the drivers of urban IGE, which overcomes the defects of endogeneity and multicollinearity of traditional econometric methods. We find for the overall sample that entrepreneurship and innovation contribute the most to IGE, accounting for about 35%, respectively, and they are the most critical drivers, while the heterogeneity test results reveal that the contribution of influencing factors has changed for different regions such as the eastern region, the central region, and the western region. Based on the experimental results of the ML model, we provide some policy suggestions for China and similar developing countries and emerging economies to promote IG.

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With the rapid development of China’s Internet finance industry and the continuous growth of transaction amount in recent years, a variety of financial risks have increased, especially credit risk in the financial industry. Also, the credit risk evaluation is usually made by using the application card scoring model, which has the shortcomings of strict data assumption and inability to process complex data. In order to overcome the limitations of the credit card scoring model and evaluate credit risk better, this paper proposes a credit evaluation model based on extreme gradient boosting tree (XGBoost) machine learning (ML) algorithm to construct a credit risk assessment model for Internet financial institutions. At the same time, an Internet lending company in China is taken as a case study to compare the performance of the traditional credit card scoring model and the proposed machine learning (ML) algorithm model. The results show that ML algorithm has a very significant advantage in the field of Internet financial risk control, it has more accurate prediction results and has no particularly strict assumptions and restrictions on data, and the process of processing data is more convenient and reliable. We should increase the application of ML in the field of financial risk control. The value of this paper lies in enriching the related research of financial technology and providing a new reference for the practice of financial risk control.

This paper studies the impact of the implementation of smart city policy (SCP) on the development of low-carbon economy (LCE) in China. For this purpose, we developed a nonconvex meta-frontier data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure LCE and used the differences-in-difference (DID) analysis method in the econometric model to empirically analyze the impact of SCP on LCE, using the dataset of 230 cities from 2005 to 2018. The results show that the implementation of SCP can significantly improve the LCE of cities, and the dynamic effect test presents that the promotion of smart cities to low-carbon economy increases with time. In addition, SCP promotes the development of LCE by optimizing government functions and improving the efficiency of governance and the degree of implementation openness. But there is heterogeneity between different cities as follows: the implementation of SCP has a more significant effect on the promotion of LCE in central and western regions in China and large-scale cities and cities without strict environmental protection planning. Finally, the robustness test verifies the reliability of the experimental data again and puts forward conclusions and policy recommendations.

To tackle the increasingly severe environmental challenges, including climate change, we should pay more attention to green growth (GG), a path to realize sustainability. Human capital (HC) has been considered a crucial driving factor for developing countries to move towards GG, but the impact and mechanisms for emerging economies to achieve GG need to be further discussed. To bridge this gap, this paper investigates the relation between HC and GG in theory and demonstration perspective. It constructs a systematic theoretical framework for their relationship. Then, it uses a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model based on the non-radial direction distance function (NDDF) to measure the GG performance of China’s 281 prefecture level cities from 2011 to 2019. Ultimately, it empirically tests the hypothesis by using econometric model and LightGBM machine learning (ML) algorithm. The empirical results indicate that: (1) There is a U-shaped relationship between China’s HC and GG. Green innovation and industrial upgrading are transmission channels in the process of HC affecting GG. (2) Given other factors affecting GG, HC and economic growth contribute equally to GG (17%), second only to city size (21%). (3) China’s HC’s impact on GG is regionally imbalanced and has city size heterogeneity.

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The stagnation of growth, huge income gap, and excessive ecological environment degradation are the three issues worldwide. As China entered the stage of high-quality development, it slowed down the economic growth speed and the government paid more attention to social harmony and environment protection. Inclusive green growth efficiency(IGGE) is used to measure the quality of economic development and the degree of coordination among economic, social, and natural systems. Under this background, this paper employs the Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) model to measure IGGE from 2006 to 2019 in 30 provinces of China. Moreover, the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics are revealed and the key drivers of IGGE are explored by the spatial econometric model. The results indicate that the level of provincial IGGI of China has an upward trend in the statistical period and the characteristics of spatial agglomeration have been enhanced. For the drivers of IGGI, the level of opening-up, human capital, and innovation have significant impact on IGGI in China, while other elements are not very important. Finally, some policy suggestions were proposed to promote IGGE in China.

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