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In the digital era, digitalization brings great opportunities and challenges for cities' environmental governance and economic growth. However, it is worth noting that the impact of digitalization on cities' green transition has not been studied from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. This paper uses the principal component method and non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to calculate the digital development level and the green economic performance of 269 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. (1) The empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has become a strong driver for cities' green economic transformation. (2) Digitalization indirectly promotes green transition through industrial structure optimization and green technological innovation. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the positive effect of digitalization on green development is more obvious in eastern and economically developed cities. (4) Using the partially linear functional-coefficient model (PLFC), this paper studies the non-linear nexus between digitalization and green economic transition from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. Thus, Metcalfe's law is confirmed in the green transition of Chinese cities. Some policy recommendations are offered for realizing the coordinated development of digitalization and greening of the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting industrial digitalization and deepening regional collaborative innovation is essential for achieving urban green and sustainable development. This paper constructs a differential game model based on theoretical analysis and reveals the influence mechanism of industrial digitalization and regional collaborative innovation on urban green development efficiency (GDE). After that, this paper uses the entropy method, Super-SBM model, and improved gravity model to measure the level of industrial digitalization, urban GDE, and regional collaborative innovation, respectively. Then, this paper constructs the fixed-effects model, SDM model, moderating-effects model, and threshold model, then uses the panel data of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration during 2011–2020 for empirical testing. The results show that: (1) industrial digitalization significantly improves urban GDE. (2) Overall, 2011–2015 is the rapid development period of BTH industry digitalization, and 2015–2020 is its stable development period. However, there are apparent spatial differences and imbalances. (3) Industrial digitalization has a significant spatial spillover effect that can enhance local and surrounding cities' GDE. (4) Regional collaborative innovation can directly enhance urban GDE, and has a positive moderating effect on industrial digitalization to enhance urban GDE. (5) The regional collaborative innovation has two thresholds of 3.9851 and 6.6184. With the collaborative innovation level improving, the main effect intensity steadily increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]