How Artificial Intelligence Development Enhances Urban Economic Resilience: Evidence from China's National AI Innovation and Development Pilot Zones

Against the backdrop of profound changes unseen in a century and frequent external shocks, enhancing urban economic resilience has become an important issue for promoting high-quality development and safeguarding national security. This paper takes the establishment of the National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Development Pilot Zone as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2024, it constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to systematically evaluate the impact effects, mechanisms, and heterogeneity characteristics of artificial intelligence innovation and development on urban economic resilience. Baseline regression results show that the policy of the AI innovation and development pilot zone significantly enhances urban economic resilience, and the conclusion remains robust after parallel trend test, placebo test, CSDID, Sun-Abraham estimation, PSM-DID, and exclusion of interference from concurrent policies, with the policy effect gradually strengthening over time. Mechanism analysis reveals that AI innovation and development enhances urban economic resilience mainly through two pathways: first, promoting the upgrading of industrial structure towards advancement and diversification, thereby enhancing the risk absorption capacity of the economic system; second, reducing knowledge acquisition costs and strengthening innovation network linkages, thereby enhancing urban innovation capacity and strengthening post-shock recovery and regeneration capacity. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy has a more significant marginal promoting effect on low-administrative-level cities, exhibiting a clear "late-mover advantage compensation effect". This study provides empirical evidence and policy implications for empowering resilient city construction through AI policies and promoting balanced regional development.