The impact of manufacturing agglomeration on green development: empirical evidence from 287 cities in China
利用2011-2023年中国287个城市面板数据，研究发现制造业集聚显著抑制了绿色发展，人工智能产业集聚起中介作用，而绿色技术创新部分抵消了负面影响，且存在空间溢出和门槛效应。
Amid global carbon-neutrality pledges and sustainable development agendas, balancing green transformation with manufacturing competitiveness has become a core challenge for the world economy. However, whether Manufacturing Agglomeration (MA) promotes or inhibits Green Development (GD) remains debated. Using panel data from 287 Chinese prefecture-level cities (2011–2023), this study employs econometric models to explore the overall, mediating, spatial, and threshold effects of MA on GD. Findings show that China’s urban GD index rose from 0.118 to 0.232, with a spatial pattern of “higher in the east and south, lower in the west and north.” Overall, MA significantly suppresses GD, a result robust to multiple tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that MA inhibits GD through the mediating effect of artificial intelligence industry agglomeration, while green technological innovation partly offsets this negative impact. Moreover, MA produces negative spatial spillovers, as environmental pressure and low-end lock-in spread through factor flows and supply-chain linkages. Threshold effects indicate the inhibition is strongest at moderate MA but weakens at higher levels, while heterogeneity analysis shows stronger suppression in the east, within urban clusters, and in higher-tier cities. This study enriches understanding of the MA-GD nexus and offers policy insights for advancing industrial green transformation and sustainable development. First published online 9 June 2026