Induction

In national economic development, the location, resource endowment conditions and development capabilities vary by region. Developed regions and cities have a high level of economic development, complete infrastructure, talent-friendly environments, and abundant employment opportunities, which can attract more high-quality talent. However, in underdeveloped areas, there are inherent deficiencies in the living environment, medical conditions, cultural education, social security, and other aspects, leading to significant talent shortages. Previous studies have shown that the mobility of entrepreneurs affects the economic development and social environment changes of cities (Gariazzo and Pelliccioni 2019). For underdeveloped regions, improving the level of public services promotes the alignment of economic agglomeration spaces and the direction of population agglomerations (Helsley and Strange 1991), making the achievements of economic development more equitably shared among different regions and more conducive to achieving balanced regional development. Therefore, from the perspective of improving regional coordinated development, the government must strengthen interventions in regional development imbalances, focusing on improving underdeveloped areas’ level of public services and attractiveness to immigrant talent.

Although cities have problems, some groups come to cities to increase their income and access better public services. Additionally, the inflow of more people to cities can bring more labor resources, create more employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, and promote urban economic development. For example, Jiao et al. (2023) reported that cities generally attract more people to live and obtain household economic income, and broadband infrastructure influences the location decision of enterprises; that is, the higher the broadband coverage in a region, the more enterprises will be attracted to start businesses in that area. Moreover, Audretsch et al. (2015) explored the relationship between infrastructure and entrepreneurship using county data from 2011 to 2015 in Germany and reported that entrepreneurship is more active in regions with better infrastructure development and greater broadband penetration.

The engagement of entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial activities is highly important for stimulating the vitality of urban innovation and promoting urban economic development. However, in some underdeveloped areas, the quality of education is poor, government financial expenditures are insufficient (De Bartolome 1992), public facilities are not convenient (Anderson 2008), and public goods are limited (Boustan 2013). Compared with regions with higher urban economic development levels, underdeveloped regions have more poor people, prominent structural contradictions, slow development of tertiary industry, and insufficient regional growth momentum, making them less attractive to immigrant talent. However, by introducing a series of innovation and entrepreneurship policies, the business environment has gradually improved.

Entrepreneurs engaging in entrepreneurial activities must be embedded in urban environments (Autio et al. 2014; Fritsch and Storey 2014). Under the influence of government policies (Minniti 2008), social relations, and public services, entrepreneurs are better able to unleash their creative abilities with local resource conditions, thus discovering potential niche markets (Miller and Le Breton-Miller 2017). To stimulate the innovation and entrepreneurship vitality of a city and attract many immigrants with entrepreneurial talent, improving urban public services related to people’s livelihoods and meeting the production, living, and business needs of immigrant entrepreneurs are necessary (Autio et al. 2014; Braunerhjelm et al. 2015). The definition of urban public services is defined in China’s National New Urbanization Plan (2014–2020), which refers to the education rights of migrant children, employment and entrepreneurship services, social security services, medical and health services, and housing security services that migrant populations should enjoy. These services are supported mainly by the state and vary depending on the location and level of urban economic development in different regions. In areas with relatively high levels of urban economic development, the influx and agglomeration of many people increase the demand for urban public services, prompting cities to improve the level and quality of public services. However, in areas with lower levels of urban economic development, public service resources are relatively scarce, social security related to production and life is difficult to fully meet, and the ability to attract immigrant talent inflows is limited (Wennekers and Thurik 1999). Additionally, underdeveloped areas have traditionally been exporters of labor, with a significant loss of labor resources, resulting in a further lag in the economic development of the region. Research has shown that the government can guide population mobility in underdeveloped areas by improving public services, such as education, health care, and infrastructure (Boustan 2013), and the “voting with your feet” mechanism indicates that people make migration decisions according to the level of public services (Tiebout 1956). For example, Zhao et al. (2022) using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey reported that public health service accessibility significantly increased the willingness of rural migrants to migrate permanently. Additionally, public health service accessibility could indirectly increase the willingness of rural migrants to migrate permanently by improving health habits, health status, identity, and social integration. Therefore, increasing the level of urban public services provided by the government to attract immigrant entrepreneurs is an important way to solve the problem of labor loss in underdeveloped areas, revitalize local economic development, and alleviate regional imbalances in development.

On the basis of the theoretical perspective of individual and environmental matching, this paper matches individual data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey with urban characteristic data from 276 prefecture-level cities to study the impact of urban public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds. This paper analyses the heterogeneous impact of urban public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds to different regions, to provincial capital cities, and against the backdrop of differences in urban classification through group regression analysis. The conclusion not only supplements the empirical evidence of the “voting with your feet” mechanism in China but also facilitates scientifically evaluating the impact of public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs, providing a reference for promoting the equalization of public services and narrowing regional economic development gaps.

The marginal contributions of this paper include the following. First, it explores the impact of urban public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs from the perspective of public management and supplements the relevant literature on entrepreneurship issues from the perspective of public management. Second, this paper theoretically expands the impact of urban public services on attracting entrepreneurial talent inflow, enriches the “voting with your feet” mechanism, and broadens the research perspective of urban economics. Unlike previous studies, this paper focuses specifically on the urban choice issues of immigrant entrepreneurs, constructs models and verifies hypotheses from multiple dimensions of urban public services. This helps accurately and effectively identify macro factors that encourage immigrant entrepreneurs to choose entrepreneurial cities and understand the internal influence mechanism of matching personal characteristics with urban characteristics when immigrant entrepreneurs choose to migrate to cities. Third, this paper conducts a group regression analysis on the basis of regional differences, whether it is a provincial capital or municipality directly under the central government city, and city classification, exploring the differential impact of urban public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds. This study provides empirical guidance for taking differentiated measures to improve the level and quality of public services and supplements relevant research on promoting regional coordinated development through public services. Fourth, this paper matches urban-level with individual-level data and overcomes the singularity of variable measurement through interactive testing from multiple data sources. This overcomes the endogeneity problem in existing studies of using only urban-level aggregated data or individual microlevel data and avoids the impact of key variable measurement singularity on the stability of estimation results.

Literature review and hypothesis development

Theoretical foundations

Personal–environment fit theory suggests that the degree of complementarity between personal characteristics and external environmental characteristics affects an individual’s behavior and attitude (Cable and Edwards 2004; Glen and Kreiner 2006; Muchinsky and Monahan 1987). When an individual’s traits match the characteristics of their environment, a good match produces a positive attitude and positive results for the individual (Edwards 2008). When personal traits do not match the characteristics of their environment, negative consequences such as stress can result (Harrison 1978). In the process of national economic development, there is an unequal distribution of resources among regions, especially in underdeveloped areas where society and the economy are relatively backwards, infrastructure is weak, education quality is not high, social security services are not sound, and local natural resource advantages are not fully utilized. This leads immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds to make mobility decisions of flowing into cities that provide a match between their own needs and environmental characteristics. Under these circumstances, it is urgent for regions to improve their local living and business environments, match their environmental characteristics with individual needs, and attract an influx of urban immigrant entrepreneurs to promote coordinated regional and balanced socioeconomic development.

Previous studies have shown that cities increase their attractiveness to immigrant entrepreneurial talent by increasing investment in education (Bates 1995), enhancing environmental resource protection (Arora et al. 2004), and improving institutional health insurance (Jackson 2010). Research has shown that the level of education affects the entrepreneurial stability of entrepreneurs (Bates 1995). The government increases investment in education in underdeveloped areas to increase returns on education, facilitating the flow of human capital from low-return to high-return areas. Underdeveloped regions can increase their attractiveness to immigrant talent by strengthening the protection and utilization of the local environment and natural resources (Arora et al. 2004). Underdeveloped regions can also ensure and improve the level of health services through a sound medical insurance system that meets medical and health care needs and concerns, attracting an influx of immigrant talent (Jackson 2010). Therefore, cities in underdeveloped areas can match public service levels with individual needs and increase their attractiveness to immigrant talent by improving education levels and health care conditions. The influx of immigrant entrepreneurs into cities not only benefits the development and utilization of local natural and social resources but also creates many employment opportunities that can absorb local labor while also bringing diverse resource advantages and corporate culture to the area. This also promotes the personal and social values of entrepreneurs who flow into cities, improving their entrepreneurial happiness and subjective satisfaction.

The impact of urban public services on regional economic development

Public services include urban services in education, health, culture, and social security. The academic community has not yet formed a unified standard for defining public services, and related research has focused mainly on education, housing, transportation facilities, social security, urban cultural services, and medical and health care. For example, Binet (2003) noted that the public services provided by the French government include mainly primary education, social welfare, leisure expenditures, highway maintenance, and local public employment. Zeng (2012) suggested that basic public services in China mainly include social security and employment, health care, public education, cultural and sports media, environmental protection, and transportation.

Additionally, different types of public services can attract different types of talent from different regions, especially entrepreneurial talent. As representatives of innovative talent, they can be seen as role models for observable learning and key nodes for knowledge inflow to cities, which is conducive to activating the learning motivation of local people and plays a role in knowledge spillover. Therefore, the government can attract and retain technology-based entrepreneurial talent by increasing investment in technology and financial support and assisting in solving issues such as elderly care, medical care, and children’s education.

However, the economic development level of each city varies, and there are significant gaps in the level of public services. In some underdeveloped areas, basic public services are lower than the national average, and the attractiveness of these cities to immigrant entrepreneurs is relatively low. Underdeveloped regions need a greater talent orientation to promote high-quality urban development by forming clusters of human capital in cities (Audretsch et al. 2015). Most urban public service projects require government financial investment; implementing them is difficult if financing is insufficient. Moreover, market size (Boschma and Fritsch 2009) and regional purchasing power (Bergmann and Sternberg 2007; Reynolds et al. 1994) can attract entrepreneurs. Therefore, increasing financial support for underdeveloped areas, attracting more immigrant talent inflows through improving the level of urban public services, and promoting high-quality development in underdeveloped areas are conducive to helping underdeveloped areas expand market scale, enhance local purchasing power, and improve their attractiveness to immigrant entrepreneurs.

The impact of urban public services on immigrant entrepreneurs

High-quality public services in cities are an important factor for local governments to attract immigrant populations to start businesses. In local economic development, basic public services are often an important policy tool for local governments to compete for talent, which can attract many highly educated immigrants. The traditional theory of population migration holds that populations migrate between regions to obtain higher wages or expected wages and that income inequality is the main reason for population migration (Lewis 1954; Todaro 1969). Ravenstein (1885) also suggested that economic factors are the greatest cause of population mobility and that the purpose of mobility is to pursue better production and living conditions. Day (1992) reported that differences in local public expenditure across Canadian provinces affect residents’ migration behavior. Therefore, whether urban public services can improve the living conditions of immigrant entrepreneurs and meet their living and entrepreneurial needs is an important factor in attracting them.

In recent years, Chinese migrant entrepreneurs have gradually shifted towards a family migration model, and there is an urgent demand for urban education, medical, and communication services. When choosing to relocate to cities, they focus on the level of public services related to living and entrepreneurship and tend to flow to cities with good public services to obtain greater social welfare. Sharp (1986) reported that housing quality and price, education quality, and relative tax rates are the main factors considered by immigrant workers in choosing their place of residence when conducting empirical analysis via census data from the United States Housing and Urban Development Agency. Borrow (2002) explored the case of Washington D.C. in the United States and reported that the level of public goods provision in the region is an important consideration for local families in choosing their place of residence. John et al. (1995) investigated the migration behavior of London residents in the UK at a micro level and reported that the combination of taxes and public services affects migration decisions. Liu and Zhang (2018) reported that introducing basic medical insurance for urban residents significantly promoted their entrepreneurial activities. For entrepreneurs migrating to underdeveloped areas, when the improvement and convenience of urban public services such as education and health care match their production and living needs, entrepreneurs will be more willing to enter the local area to engage in entrepreneurial activities, and the quality of entrepreneurship will also be greater.

Additionally, the state supports innovation and entrepreneurship activities, promoting urban innovation capabilities that increasingly reflect the quality of the urban business environment and the number of entrepreneurial opportunities. Immigrant entrepreneurs are influenced by urban innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities in making mobility inflow decisions according to the level of urban public services. Lazear (1999) reported that when people from different places interact in the same place, they have different skills, experiences, and problem-solving abilities, which can generate new ideas for comprehensive innovation. This not only affects the decision of whether immigrant entrepreneurs will flow in but also helps improve the ability of entrepreneurial enterprises to seize new opportunities and achieve sustainable development. Urban public services are provided and regulated mainly by government departments, and entrepreneurs are also subject to government supervision and management when enjoying urban public services. The intensity of government regulation may affect the experience of entrepreneurs enjoying urban public services, thereby affecting a city’s attractiveness to immigrant entrepreneurs. In summary, this paper proposes the following hypothesis, and Fig. 1 shows the theoretical framework of this paper. The theoretical framework of this paper is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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Theoretical framework of urban public services attracting immigrant entrepreneurs.

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H1: Cities with higher levels of public services provided by the government are more likely to attract immigrant entrepreneurs.

H2: Urban innovation ability plays a moderating role in attracting immigrant entrepreneurs influenced by public services.

H3: The intensity of government regulation plays a moderating role in the impact of public services on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs.

Research design

Data sources

This paper is based on matching data between the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) and data from prefecture-level cities. The CMDS data adopt a Probability Proportionate to Size Sampling (PPS) method to conduct a sampling survey. The survey subjects were nonlocal residents who had resided in the inflow area for more than 1 month and were aged 15 years or above, with a sample size of 169989 households. The data at the city level are sourced from the 2017 China City Statistical Yearbook. This paper counts CMDS data at the city level and matches it with prefecture-level data to obtain a sample pool. A map of China (Fig. 2) is provided to clearly illustrate the spatial extent of the urban sample in this paper.

Fig. 2
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The map of China.

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This paper mainly studies the role of urban characteristics in the flow decision-making of immigrant entrepreneurs, and the selected individual sample is entrepreneurs who flow between cities, meeting the following conditions: (1) the survey time point is in a certain city and the household registration place is not in that city, (2) aged 15 years or above, (3) outflow due to business and work reasons, and (4) the employment status is “employer” or “self-employed worker”. The number of entrepreneurs who meet the above criteria is 51,557, but owing to the missing variable values in some cities with urban characteristics, our constructed city set includes 276 cities. We exclude immigrant entrepreneurs who flow into other cities outside of these 276 cities and ultimately include 45,591 immigrant entrepreneurs. Additionally, this paper further clusters 45,591 samples of immigrant entrepreneurs at the urban level and calculates the number of immigrant entrepreneurs who flow into each city according to their educational background. The number of immigrant entrepreneurs who have attended primary school and have not attended school in each city is recorded as the number of low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs; the number of immigrant entrepreneurs who have attended junior high school, senior school, or technical school in each city is recorded as the number of moderately educated immigrant entrepreneurs; and the number of immigrant entrepreneurs who have attended college or have undergraduate and postgraduate education is recorded as the number of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs.

Moreover, this paper draws on the practices of existing research (Binet 2003; Zeng 2012) and selects seven aspects to measure the level of urban public services: higher education, vocational education, primary education, cultural services, communication services, medical services, and transportation services. Urban wages, the urban economic development level, the urban industrial structure, and the urban population size are selected as control variables. At the same time, this paper matched the measurement indicators and control variables of urban public services with the inflow of immigrant entrepreneurs and obtained 276 prefecture-level entrepreneur–city matching data. Among them, the number of prefecture-level cities in China in 2017 was 338. Due to the lack of data in some cities, the city set we constructed includes 276 cities (accounting for 88.43% of the total number of prefecture-level cities), which are distributed in 31 provinces across the country and constitute the main cities into which immigrant entrepreneurs flow. Therefore, the 276 entrepreneur–city matching data constructed in this paper have good representativeness as the selection set of inflow cities for immigrant entrepreneurs. Table 1 lists the characteristics of immigrant entrepreneurs and urban-level variables. Figure 3 is a bar chart of cities with more than 200 immigrant entrepreneurs.

Table 1 Variable description.
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Fig. 3
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Histogram of cities with more than 200 immigrant entrepreneurs.

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Model setting

$${{\rm{Y}}_{\rm{i}}{\rm{j}}}={{{\upbeta }}}_{0}+{{{\upbeta }}}_{1}{\rm{{X}}}_{\rm{{i}}}+{{{\upbeta }}}_{2}{{\rm{control}}}_{\rm{{i}}}+{{{\xi }}}_{{{i}}}$$

where dependent variable Yij represents the cumulative number of immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds who entered the city in 2017, j represents the educational background of immigrant entrepreneurs, and the core explanatory variable Xi represents the public service level of city i in 2017, which mainly includes urban higher education, vocational education, primary education, cultural services, communication services, medical services, and transportation services. Controli represents a series of control variables. ξi is a random disturbance term that affects the inflow of immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds.

Empirical analysis

Descriptive statistics

Table 2 shows that the average educational level of urban immigrant entrepreneurs is 1.9039, indicating that immigrant entrepreneurs entering cities generally have a moderate level of education. The average number of low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs is 29.6703, the average number of medium-educated immigrant entrepreneurs is 121.7246, and the average number of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs is 13.7899. This finding indicates that among the immigrant entrepreneurs flowing into cities, the number of moderately educated immigrant entrepreneurs is the highest, followed by low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs, with highly educated entrepreneurs being the lowest. The average value of urban higher education services is 0.5922 (the maximum value is 6.9715), of urban primary education services it is 1.8016 (the maximum value is 12.0458), of urban cultural services it is 34.4806 (the maximum value is 777.3), and of urban transportation services it is 5.6496 (the maximum value is 51.4538), indicating that the level of urban higher education and primary education services, cultural services, and transportation services in each city is relatively low. The maximum value of urban vocational education, communication services, and medical services is approximately seven times greater than average, indicating a significant difference in the average level of vocational education, communication, and medical services among cities.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics.
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Baseline regression analysis

To reveal the kinds of urban public services that attract urban immigrant entrepreneurs of different educational levels, this paper analyses their impact on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs from seven subdimensions of urban public services. Table 3 shows the regression results between urban public services and immigrant entrepreneurs of various educational levels.

Table 3 Baseline regression and grouping regression based on the educational background of entrepreneurs.
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Column (1) in Table 3 shows a significant correlation between the educational background of urban immigrant entrepreneurs and urban higher education, vocational education, primary education, cultural services, and medical services. Columns (2) to (7) show that a significant and positive correlation between the number of urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs and the level of urban higher education; a significant and positive correlation between the number of urban medium-educated immigrant entrepreneurs and the level of urban higher education, primary education, and medical services; and a significantly negative correlation with urban communication services and transportation services. There is a significant and positive correlation between the influx of urban highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs and the level of urban higher education, primary education, and cultural services, whereas there is a significantly negative correlation with urban communication services and transportation services. Moreover, there is a significantly positive correlation between the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs low, medium and high levels of education with the wage level, economic development level, and industrial structure of the city. This indicates that urban public services and economic factors attract immigrant entrepreneurs of different educational backgrounds. Therefore, Hypothesis H1 is verified.

Group regression analysis

Due to regional differences, there are differences in government revenues and expenditures among cities, resulting in differences in the attractiveness of public services to entrepreneurial talent. To examine the attractiveness of urban public services to urban immigrant entrepreneurs in a more detailed manner, this paper further conducts group regression analysis based on regional differences and city classification. The aim is to identify the different attractiveness effects of urban public services on urban immigrant entrepreneurs with low, medium and high education levels and on urban immigrant entrepreneurs under different circumstances.

Grouping regression based on regional differences

Urban public services are provided mainly by the government. Due to differences in government transfer payments among different cities, the level of urban public services varies, leading to differences in their attractiveness to immigrant entrepreneurs. To reveal the attractiveness of public service levels in different regions and cities to immigrant entrepreneurs, this paper further conducts a grouped regression analysis by economic region where entrepreneurs flow.

Table 4 shows a significantly positive correlation between urban higher education and vocational education in the eastern region and between the number of urban low-educated and medium-educated immigrant entrepreneurs based on the grouping regression results of the economic regions where they migrate. Urban cultural services only have a significantly positive correlation with the number of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs in urban areas. There is a significantly negative correlation between urban transportation services and the number of immigrant entrepreneurs educated in urban areas and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs in urban areas. Second, urban moderately educated immigrant entrepreneurs flowing into the eastern region focus mainly on the high level of local intellectual capital and professional technology, as well as the impact of urban transportation services. Finally, the urban highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs flowing into the eastern region mainly value the cultural services of cities and their satisfaction, whereas the urban transportation services in this region have a significant inhibitory effect on attracting urban highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs.

Table 4 Region-based grouped regression results.
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There is no significant correlation between urban public services in the central region and the number of urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs; there is a significant and positive correlation between urban higher education and cultural services and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with medium and high levels of education, whereas there is a significantly negative correlation between urban vocational education and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with medium education. Second, immigrant entrepreneurs educated in the central region of China focus on the positive impact of urban higher education and cultural services on their entrepreneurship, as well as the inhibitory effect of urban vocational education on their entrepreneurship. Finally, the influx of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs to cities in the central region focuses on the impact of knowledge spillovers caused by urban higher education and cultural services on entrepreneurship and the ability to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit.

There is a significant and positive correlation between urban medical services in the western region and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with low education levels, whereas there is a significantly negative correlation between urban communication services and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with low education levels. There is a significant and positive correlation between urban higher education, primary education, and medical services and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with medium education, whereas there is a significantly negative correlation between urban communication services and the number of medium-education urban immigrant entrepreneurs. There is a significant and positive correlation between urban higher education and the number of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs from urban areas, whereas there is a significantly negative correlation between urban vocational education and the number of urban highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs.

In the northeast region, there is only a significantly positive correlation between urban cultural services and the number of urban immigrant entrepreneurs with low education levels. Urban higher education and cultural services have a significantly positive correlation with the number of urban medium-educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Urban higher education and medical services have a significantly positive correlation with the number of highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs in urban areas.

In summary, from the eastern to the central regions and then to the western region, the economic aggregate and per capita GDP of urban agglomerations decrease. The increasing concentration of population and industry in better cities has led to uneven urban development. For example, eastern coastal urban agglomerations, such as the Beijing‒Tianjin‒Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations, are located in the central and western regions and have good resource endowments and economic foundations.

Grouping regression based on city classification

Larger cities have more convenient infrastructure and better living conditions (Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg 2013), which have a differential effect on attracting immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds. Therefore, this paper further analyses the impact of urban public services on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds based on urban classification.

The results of Table 5 show that the higher the level of higher education and health care in (new) first-tier cities, the more they attract highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. The higher the level of education in second- and third-tier cities, the more they attract low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs, moderately educated immigrant entrepreneurs, and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. The higher the level of urban vocational education, the greater the outflow of immigrant entrepreneurs from various educational backgrounds. The higher the level of education in fourth- and fifth-tier cities, the more they attract low-educated, moderately educated, and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Moreover, the higher the level of urban communication services, the greater the outflow of medium-educated and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. This indicates that highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs who flow into (new) first-tier cities, as well as immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds who flow into second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, all focus on the positive impact of urban higher education levels on their entrepreneurial enterprises, families, and individuals. Additionally, immigrant entrepreneurs with low, medium and high levels of education who flow into different levels of cities focus on differences in public service categories beyond urban higher education.

Table 5 Grouping regression based on city classification.
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In summary, first-tier cities generally are international cities with extremely large scales and great international influence. Second-tier cities are generally regional-level cities with large scales and regional influence. Third-tier cities are generally provincial-level cities with a certain scale and regional influence, and local prefecture-level cities have a relatively large scale and some degree of influence. Therefore, the heterogeneity regression analysis based on city classification reveals that the public service level of first-, second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities has both positive and negative effects on migrant entrepreneurs with different educational levels.

Mechanism analysis

This paper further analyses the moderating effects of urban innovation capacity and government regulatory intensity on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs influenced by urban public services.

Moderating effects of urban innovation capacity

Innovation is a powerful driving force for high-quality development, especially for cities. Innovation capability is a decisive factor in the quality of urban economic development. The innovation capability of a city reflects potential entrepreneurial opportunities and the mobility of entrepreneurial resources, affecting its attractiveness to immigrant entrepreneurs. Therefore, this paper explores the moderating effect of urban innovation capability on urban public services’ attracting immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds and uses the per capita scores of the 2017 China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Index to measure urban innovation capability.

Table 6 shows that urban innovation ability has a significantly negative moderating effect on urban higher education’s attracting urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs, whereas it has a significantly positive moderating effect on urban transportation services’ attracting urban medium- and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. The positive impact of urban higher education on attracting urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs is suppressed by the city’s innovation ability. The negative impact of urban transportation services on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with high education levels is exacerbated by the moderating effect of a city’s innovation ability. Therefore, Hypothesis H2 is partially validated.

Table 6 Regression results of the moderating effect of urban innovation capacity.
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Moderating effects of government regulatory intensity

Urban public services are supported and regulated mainly by government departments, and urban immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds are also supervised and managed by government departments while enjoying urban public services. Public officials are employed by government departments and exercise supervisory and management functions. To reveal the moderating effect of government regulatory intensity on the attractiveness of public services to urban immigrant entrepreneurs with various educational backgrounds, this paper selects the number of public officials in 2017 as the proxy variable for government regulatory intensity and analyses the moderating effect of government regulatory intensity.

Table 7 shows that government regulatory intensity significantly regulates the attractiveness of urban public services to urban immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds. Specifically, government regulation intensity plays a significantly negative moderating role in the attractiveness of urban higher education levels to immigrant entrepreneurs with low, medium and high levels of education. The intensity of government regulation has a significantly negative moderating effect on the attractiveness of urban communication services to medium- and highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Government regulation intensity plays a significant and positive role in the attractiveness of urban medical services to medium-education immigrant entrepreneurs, whereas government regulation intensity plays a significant and positive role in the attractiveness of urban cultural services to highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Therefore, Hypothesis H3 is partially validated.

Table 7 The moderating effect of government regulatory intensity.
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Conclusion and discussion

This paper uses microdata from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey and matching data from 276 prefecture-level cities to study the impact of urban public services on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds. The research results indicate that urban higher education has a positive and significant effect on attracting urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Urban higher and primary education have a positive and significant effect on attracting urban medium-educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Urban higher education, primary education, and cultural services have a positive and significant impact on attracting highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs from urban areas. Moreover, urban communication and transportation services have a significantly negative effect on the influx of immigrant entrepreneurs with medium and high levels of education. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that urban cultural services in eastern cities have a positive and significant effect on the inflow of urban high-education immigrant entrepreneurs, whereas urban higher education services in western cities have a positive and significant effect on the inflow of urban medium- and high-education immigrant entrepreneurs. The level of urban higher education and cultural services in provincial capital cities has a significantly positive effect on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with high education backgrounds. Urban higher education services in second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities have a positive and significant effect on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with low, medium and high levels of education. Moreover, the urban medical level of new first-tier and first-tier cities has a positive and significant impact on attracting urban highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs. Further mechanism testing indicates that the urban innovation capacity has a significant negative moderating effect on the attractiveness of urban higher education to urban low-educated immigrant entrepreneurs. In contrast, it has a significantly positive moderating effect on the attractiveness of urban transportation services to urban immigrant entrepreneurs with medium and high levels of education. The intensity of government regulation plays a significant moderating role in the impact of urban public services on attracting urban immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds.

First, the “voting with your feet” mechanism shows that people tend to flow to cities that can provide high-quality public resources, especially politically competitive cities (Liu and Ngo 2020). Urban public services are usually provided by the government and have certain political implications and the regression analysis results of this paper show a positive correlation between urban public services and the flow of immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds; thus, the paper’s conclusions verify the voting with your feet mechanism.

Second, good public services play a vital role in urban development, allowing residents people to have good space for development, attracting migrants to the city, promoting development, and improving the income and social status of migrants. Education and cultural public services can attract talent, and cities can improve the ability and quality of immigrant entrepreneurs by providing high-quality educational and cultural resources, which can help them adapt well to the local environment. Urban communication and transportation service systems can improve the efficiency of the work of immigrant entrepreneurs and promote access to and sharing of entrepreneurial resources. Public health services are related to the health and quality of life of migrant entrepreneurs and their families, and large cities tend to have better quality medical public services, which are very attractive to them.

Third, urban innovation can improve the competitiveness and industrial development level of cities, improve the quality of life of residents, provide residents with a better living environment, and provide more entrepreneurial and employment opportunities. Urban innovation can provide immigrant entrepreneurs with good innovation and entrepreneurship scores, including an open culture, a good entrepreneurial environment, and abundant investment and financing channels, to attract more entrepreneurial talent.

Fourth, immigrant entrepreneurs who start businesses in different places not only face the difficulties of cultural integration but also face the risks and uncertainties of entrepreneurship, affecting their success in starting businesses. This is not conducive to the development of the city or the individual. Government supervision can somewhat reduce the risks and difficulties entrepreneurs face, provide them with institutional support and a better entrepreneurial space, and promote the development of entrepreneurial enterprises.

On the basis of our empirical findings, this paper makes several suggestions. First, the government is encouraged to provide corresponding urban public services in response to the most urgent needs of immigrant entrepreneurs in education, health care, technology and urban communication to attract them to the local area. Second, the government should rely on community and social forces to provide diversified and differentiated public services for immigrant entrepreneurs, attracting more immigrant entrepreneurs to flow in. Third, local governments are encouraged to adjust the location of public service facilities promptly based on the distribution of existing enterprises and the population to improve urban public service convenience and attract immigrant entrepreneurs with different educational backgrounds.