arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

AI and robotics as drivers of China’s urban innovation

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Zhuoying You

Spatial Economic Analysis2026https://doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2025.2611840article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Few studies have examined the economic consequences of deploying artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in less-developed cities, where policies have often failed. To address this gap, we analyse a panel of 270 Chinese cities (2009–2019) using ordinary least squares (OLS), instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) and quantile regression techniques. We find that AI and robotics significantly promote technological innovation in China, with especially pronounced implications for cities at or below the technological frontier. These technologies also enhance the returns to science and technology (S&T) investment. Its novelty lies in framing AI and robotics as policy substitutes and tools for narrowing innovation divides among Chinese cities.

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2025.2611840

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{andrés2026,
  title        = {{AI and robotics as drivers of China’s urban innovation}},
  author       = {Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Zhuoying You},
  journal      = {Spatial Economic Analysis},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/17421772.2025.2611840},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

AI and robotics as drivers of China’s urban innovation

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.