The Impact Factors and Spatial Spillover of Industrial Green Development: Based on Cities in the Northwest Segment of the Silk Road Economic Belt

With the increasing global emphasis on green development, industrial green development (IGD) has gradually gained attention as a crucial component of sustainable development. However, there is limited research evaluating and analyzing the IGD of cities with slow economic development and a high resource endowment. Utilizing empirical data gathered from cities in the northwest segment of the Silk Road Economic Belt spanning from 2009 to 2018, this research employs the entropy-weighted TOPSIS model to establish an indicator framework for evaluating IGD. Subsequently, this paper analyzes the impact of factors such as the economic foundation, innovation capacity and crucial guarantee on IGD, as well as the spatial spillover effects in cities of the northwest segment of the Silk Road Economic Belt using spatial panel data and the spatial Durbin model. The results indicate that the IGD levels of urban clusters exhibit the characteristics of plate-ladder-type difference, being "excellent in the southeast, good in the middle, and inferior in the northwest" displaying fluctuating upward trends and spatial clustering over time. Additionally, the degree of opening up also positively impacts IGD, while the level of economic development has a detrimental effect on IGD. Human capital and environmental regulations demonstrate notable spatial spillover effects on IGD. Our study enriches the evaluation system for IGD and provides recommendations for the industrial green transformation of cities along the Silk Road Economic Belt.