As the low-carbon wave sweeps over China, how can urban economic resilience break through?

Abstract As pilot cities in China’s exploration of sustainable and low-carbon transitions, low-carbon cities play a pivotal role in achieving the nation’s “dual carbon” targets and fostering green, sustainable economic growth. We investigate the impact of low-carbon city development on urban economic resilience, using the pilot policy for low-carbon city construction in China as a quasi-experimental framework. Employing a difference-in-differences approach and analyzing panel data from 270 prefecture-level cities in China spanning 2005–2020, we find that the establishment of low-carbon cities significantly enhances urban economic resilience. This result remains robust across various rigorous tests. We further identify technological innovation and agglomeration effects as key mechanisms through which low-carbon city development bolsters economic resilience. In addition, we reveal considerable variation in the impact of low-carbon city construction on the economic resilience of different types of cities, where differences exist between them in terms of geographical location, economic scale, population size, and resource endowment. Our research contributes to the existing literature on urban economic resilience and offers new insights into the policy outcomes associated with low-carbon city initiatives.