Environmental quality and the ebb and flow of urban innovation in China: An Explanation from the Perspective of Human Capital Mobility

As urban competition intensifies, city quality increasingly becomes a key factor in determining human capital distribution and fostering urban innovation. Does environmental quality, as a crucial aspect of urban quality, lead to the mobilization of human capital and drive urban innovation? A definitive answer to this question remains unclear. This study begins with urban air pollution and constructs a framework of “environmental quality - human capital mobility - urban innovation efficiency.” It verifies this framework by integrating “Baidu Migration” big data with urban panel data. The findings reveal that: (1) Air pollution significantly inhibits urban innovation efficiency. This conclusion holds even after using instrumental variable techniques to address endogeneity concerns and conducting robustness analyses. (2) Mechanism tests show that reductions in both the quantity and quality of human capital, along with the outflow of high-skilled labor, are key mechanisms underlying the innovation-dampening effects of air pollution. (3) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the negative effects of air pollution on innovation are more pronounced in inland cities with high-speed rail connections. This implies the reinforcement of China's regional innovation pattern, with lower innovation levels in the western regions and higher levels in the eastern regions. Additionally, enhancing economic agglomeration, providing high-quality public services, fostering cultural diversity, and strengthening digital infrastructure can increase residents' attachment to their local areas, thereby mitigating the negative impact of air pollution.