Zhenxu Yang, Beibei Wang, Wanxiao Li
China’s shift toward a high-quality development (HQD) paradigm increased interest in service sector liberalisation; however, its impact on the service sector (HQDSS) remains underexplored. Utilising 2005–2022 panel data from 27 provinces and treating the policy of expanding service sector opening-up (OSS) as a natural experiment, this study employs the synthetic difference-in-differences method to assess the policy’s effect on HQDSS. The results indicate that OSS implementation increases HQDSS by 0.02885 units, a finding consistent across multiple robustness tests. Mechanism analysis further reveals that OSS promotes HQDSS through talent agglomeration and capital-deepening.
China; Opening-up in the service sector; High-quality development of the service sector; Synthetic difference-in-differences