Natural resource dependence and sustainable development policy: Insights from city-level analysis

Abstract

Under the unprecedented negative impacts of global economic slowdown and environmental deterioration, the question of how to turn the “natural resource curse” into the “natural resource blessing” has become a major emerging issue. This study estimates how a dynamically implemented sustainable development policy can break down the natural resource curse in 283 Chinese cities from 2009 to 2019, with the time-varying difference-in-differences model adopted. The findings indicate that: (1) As for the pilot cities, this sustainable development policy can reduce their natural resource dependence by 30.81% at the 1% significance level, with the overall policy effect being more evident among resource-based and industry-based cities. (2) Cities can employ green patent output as an effective mechanism to enhance policy-stimulating effects on natural resource dependence, among which green utility patent output works better. (3) Cities in multi-regional-level urban agglomerations will have more policy effects in breaking natural resource curses.