How does college scale affect urban resilience? Spatiotemporal evidence from China

Based on the data of 281 cities in China from 2011 to 2018, this paper explores the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of urban resilience and the college scale, and investigates the causal relationship between the college scale and urban resilience by a spatial two-stage least squares regression (2SLS) model and the relocation data of colleges in 1952 as an instrumental variable. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The cold-hot spots of college scale and urban resilience have remained relatively stable. (2) The college scale can promote urban resilience and urban social resilience. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the college scale has a significant effect on cities with weak urban resilience or a low level innovation. (3) The mechanism analysis shows that the urban scale effect and technological innovation effect are the mechanisms between college scale and urban resilience. The conclusions provide new evidences for accelerating the construction of resilient cities from the perspective of college development.