The advancement of the big data industry is playing a pivotal role in urban land management refinement. Recently, China initiated a big data strategy, establishing national big data comprehensive pilot zones (NBDCPZs) across diverse regions. These initiatives present substantial opportunities for enhancing the urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE). Consequently, in this study, we utilized the super-efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model with undesirable outputs to assess the ULGUEs across 281 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2021. Subsequently, leveraging the NBDCPZ establishment as a quasi-natural experiment, we employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method to empirically explore the impact of the NBDCPZ policy on the ULGUE for the first time. The findings revealed the following: (1) The implementation of the NBDCPZ policy significantly enhances the ULGUE; (2) the effects are mediated through mechanisms such as fostering technological innovation, mitigating resource misallocation, and promoting industrial agglomeration; (3) the heterogeneity analysis emphasizes the increased policy effectiveness in cities characterized by fewer natural resources, lower economic growth pressures, stable development stages, and moderate digital infrastructure and human capital levels; and (4) further analysis demonstrates the significant positive spillover effects of the NBDCPZ policy on the ULGUEs of neighboring non-pilot cities, with a diminishing impact as the proximity between pilot and non-pilot cities decreases. Overall, this study contributes to the literature on the relationship between the digital economy and land utilization, offering valuable insights for achieving sustainable urban development.

Based on the data of 282 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2018, this article analyzes and explains the synergizing the reduction of pollution and carbon emissions (PCE) of new-type urbanization (NTU) by employing the Differences-in-Differences (DID) model. The results exhibit that the NTU has a significant promoting effect on reducing atmospheric pollutant emissions and improving carbon emission efficiency, demonstrating significant synergistic effects in reducing PCE. This effect varies greatly due to differences in city areas, urban-rural income gap and city scale. Mechanism analysis shows that the NTU mainly affects the synergizing the reduction of PCE by promoting land use structure adjustment and enhancing the level of green technology innovation. Further research indicates that the NTU has a great spatial spillover effect on PCE. This article provides a comprehensive exploration and evaluation of the synergizing the reduction of PCE under the NTU policy. The research findings provide policy insights for reducing air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, as well as for advancing the construction of NTU more effectively.