ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1531065
This article is part of the Research TopicGreening Cities: Integrating Low Carbon Strategies for Healthy Urban FuturesView all articles
Impact of low-carbon city pilot policy on green total factor productivity: A quasinatural experiment design using an epsilon-based measure
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
- 2East China Normal University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
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Utilizing a panel dataset of 273 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2019, this study evaluates the impact of the low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy on green total factor productivity (GTFP). This study calculates GTFP via a hybrid function model of the epsilon-based measure. Using a staggered difference-indifferences framework, we found that the LCCP policy improves GTFP. Through its implementation, the LCCP policy exerts an increasingly positive impact. We identify promoting industrial structure optimization and technological innovation as two plausible underlying mechanisms. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the impact is more pronounced in central and western China, as well as in low-level administrative and low-marketization cities. This study provides empirical evidence for the optimization of the LCCP policy and the transformation of the low-carbon economy, and provides a basis for policy-making.
Keywords: low-carbon city pilot policy, Green total factor productivity, Epsilon-based measure, Industrial structure optimization, technological innovation
Received: 19 Nov 2024; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liu, Huang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Maoguo Wu, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
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