Reaping green dividend: The effect of China's urban new energy transition strategy on green economic performance

As cities face escalating resource and environmental challenges, advancing green economic performance (GEP) emerges as a critical pathway for sustainable urban development. While China's urban new energy transition strategy presents a promising paradigm shift in the realm of green energy, there exists a knowledge gap regarding its tangible impact on green economic grown. Drawing on city-level panel data from 2006 to 2020, this research assesses the GEP of 260 Chinese cities utilizing the non-radial distance function methodology. Subsequently, the difference-in-differences method is applied to offer quasi-experimental insights into the effects of the New Energy Demonstration City (NEDC) policy on urban GEP. Our findings indicate that the NEDC policy has both economically and statistically significant ramifications for urban GEP, leading to an enhancement effect of approximately 2.0 %. This outcome remains consistent even after rigorous robustness checks. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the NEDC policy exerts a more pronounced influence on the GEP of central, western, and non-resource cities. Mechanism analysis suggests that the positive policy effect is primarily driven by the advancement of technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and green finance development. The NEDC policy holds the potential for a symbiotic balance between environmental and economic outcomes, setting a precedent for urban green growth.