Do Honored Cities Achieve a Sustainable Development? A Quasi-Natural Experimental Study Based on “National Civilized City” Campaign in China

As a new model of urban governance with Chinese characteristics, the national honored cities from city evaluation competitions, represented by the “National Civilized City” campaign, has always been popular among Chinese cities. Can the honored cities of the campaigns achieve sustainable development, and how? Based on the five concepts of sustainable development, which are innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, this study sets up a comprehensive index to measure the sustainability of the growth of a city. Then, the data of 242 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2019 and the difference-in-differences (DID) approach are used to evaluate the impacts of the Civilized City honored in the campaigns on the sustainability of growth. The results show that: (1) the “Civilized City” honor promotes sustainable development in Chinese cities; (2) the mechanism analysis shows that the “Civilized City” honor contributes to the sustainability of growth by effectively promoting the level of industrial agglomeration in cities; (3) further heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of the “Civilized City” honor on the sustainability of growth varies by city size, the administrative level and the location of the city. By providing the evidence of economic effects of the “Civilized City” honor, this research rationalizes the city campaigns run by the Chinese government and provides important enlightenment for the continuous improvement of the selection mechanism of the national honored cities to promote sustainable development.