Has the sustainable energy transition in China's resource-based cities promoted green technology innovation in firms?

Abstract

Sustainable energy access for all cities is a major concern. Using a sample of listed companies between 2007 and 2018 in China's heavy pollution industries, this paper considers the Plan for the Sustainable Development of Resource-based Cities in China (2013–2020) (hereafter referred to as “SE policy”) as a quasi-natural experiment to evaluate the impact of a sustainable energy policy for resource-based cities (RBCs) on firm-level green behavior based on difference-in-differences (DID) model and further tests the heterogeneity of impact. The main findings are presented as follows:(1) The implementation of SE policy promotes heavily polluting firms' green technology innovation. After several robustness tests, the result is still valid. (2) There is a greater impact of SE policy on firms' green technology innovation among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) when compared with non-SOEs. (3) The impact of SE policy on firms' green technology innovation is greater among firms with a high degree of slack resources. In a nutshell, enacting a sustainable energy policy for RBCs is successful in encouraging green behavior among firms in RBCs.