Promoting urban green and low-carbon transformation is essential for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, yet cities continue to face financing constraints, insufficient project identification, and weak incentives for green innovation. This study treats China’s climate investment and financing pilot program as a quasi-natural experiment. It uses panel data for 242 prefecture-level and above cities from 2016 to 2023 to estimate its effect on urban green transformation with a difference-in-differences (DID) specification The results show that the pilot significantly promotes urban green transformation, and the policy effect is stronger in coastal cities, large and medium-sized cities, major urban agglomerations, and non-resource-based cities. Mechanism analysis shows that the pilot promotes urban green transformation by increasing local governments’ focus on carbon reduction, advancing green finance development, and stimulating green technological innovation. These findings support improving pilot evaluation and implementation, strengthening climate-project development and green financial instruments, and tailoring policy support to local conditions.
Against the backdrop of the coordinated advancement of the dual carbon goals and new-type urbanization, the traditional high-carbon development model has become a major constraint on urban green transformation. As a critical vehicle for digital technologies to empower low-carbon governance, smart cities have yet to rec...
Deng-Lei Chen, Shui-Tai Xu, Hong Pan et al.· Sustainability· 0 citations
Pilot zones for green finance reform and innovation constitute a pivotal institutional initiative for China to advance green economic transition. Nevertheless, whether their carbon abatement effects exhibit universal applicability or hinge on urban structural characteristics remains insufficiently verified by empirical...
Yi-Dong Zhao· Journal of Applied Economics...· 0 citations
Waste accumulation and land carrying pressure are common sustainability challenges in urbanization, making the improvement of urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) a key issue. Using panel data from 278 Chinese cities over 2008–2023, this study treats zero-waste city pilots as a quasi-natural experiment and construct...
The rapid expansion of digital infrastructure is creating a growing need to reconcile computing demand with urban environmental goals. Yet whether greener computing facilities can contribute to the joint advancement of digitalization and green development remains insufficiently understood. This study evaluates China’s...
Yang Zhang, Yong-Feng Hou· Sustainability· 0 citations
Urban ecological resilience is a crucial foundation for sustainable urban development. Based on balanced panel data from 285 prefecture-level and higher cities in China from 2007 to 2023, this paper treats the implementation of the 2018 “Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China” as a quasi-nat...
This paper examines whether China's green finance reform pilot zones improve environmental performance and how such effects are transmitted. The 2017 pilot-zone policy provides a quasi-natural experimental setting for the analysis. Observations covering 2013–2021 are examined through a Difference-in-Differences (DID) a...
Yuan-Chun Chen· Journal of Applied Economics...· 0 citations
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