Does the Environmental Information Disclosure Promote the High-Quality Development of China’s Resource-Based Cities?

Abstract

The high-quality development (HQD) of resource-based cities (RBCs) is the premise on which to ensure the healthy, stable, and sustainable development of China’s economy. In this study, we use the global Malmquist–Luenberger index based on the slacks-based measure of directional distance function (SBM-DDF-GML index), which is an improved data envelopment analysis (DEA) model of the non-radial and non-oriented, to calculate the HQD level of 102 RBCs in China from 2003 to 2019. Then, we empirically evaluate the effect of environmental information disclosure (EID) on HQD improvement in RBCs by adopting the method of time-varying difference-in-difference with propensity score matching (PSM-DID) and investigate the heterogeneous effects of EID. Additionally, the mediating effect model is employed to explore the impact mechanisms of EID on the HQD. The results show that: (1) EID has a significant and positive effect on the HQD of RBCs, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. (2) EID plays a more effective role in the promotion of HQD in central RBCs, resource strong-dependent RBCs, growth RBCs, and regenerative RBCs than in other types of cities. (3) EID promotes the HQD of RBCs through the environmental pollution reduction effect and the industrial structure upgrading effect. These findings enrich the content of the relationship between EID and the HQD and present a feasible path for RBCs in China to achieve the HQD through environmental governance.