Optimizing government resource allocation in public sectors: investigating intelligent urban systems for effective crisis management

This paper draws upon a theoretical framework for resource allocation to examine the differences in resource allocation capabilities of city governments that result from harnessing intelligent urban systems, also known as smart city construction. By analyzing data from 141 Chinese cities in 2020, we demonstrate that smart city construction has a positive influence on government resource allocation capacity. Moreover, we find that this positive relationship is strengthened when there is sufficient regional resource stock and weakened by the complexity of regional pandemics. This study highlights the critical mechanism of harnessing intelligent urban systems to optimize government resource allocation, contributing to the literature on resource allocation in public sectors, and providing clear practical implications for effective crisis management.