Engineering mayors and urban carbon governance: evidence from China

Under China's "dual carbon" goals, local officials bear primary responsibility for reducing carbon emissions within their jurisdictions. This paper investigates whether mayors' professional backgrounds are associated with better performance in achieving emission reduction outcomes. Using Panel data from prefecture-level cities between 2005 and 2016, we find that mayors with engineering backgrounds significantly reduce carbon emission intensity. This effect is pronounced in in megacities, industrial hubs, eastern regions, and cities with stronger economic foundations. Mechanism analysis reveals: engineering-trained mayors possess stronger technical expertise and systematic, pragmatic thinking, enabling them to foster greater local green innovation-both in quantity and quality-and to adopt high-intensity low-carbon policies, particularly market-based instruments. These findings highlight that appropriately appointing mayors with engineering expertise represents a distinctive and effective policy instrument for achieving China's dual-carbon goals. This also underscores the importance of incorporating technical expertise into cadre selection and evaluation systems.