Does Environmental Protection Tax Reform Enhance Urban Ecological Resilience? Evidence from a Continuous-Intensity Difference-in-Differences Approach in China

Urban ecological resilience is a crucial foundation for sustainable urban development. Based on balanced panel data from 285 prefecture-level and higher cities in China from 2007 to 2023, this paper treats the implementation of the 2018 “Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China” as a quasi-natural experiment and employs a continuous-intensity difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of the environmental protection tax reform on urban ecological resilience. The study finds that the environmental protection tax reform significantly enhances urban ecological resilience, with industrial structure upgrading and green technology innovation serving as key transmission channels. Fiscal pressures weaken the reform’s effects, while the level of marketization reinforces its positive impact. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the reform’s effects are more pronounced in non-resource-based cities, coastal cities, and cities in the eastern region. This study expands the research on the ecological effects of environmental protection tax reform and provides empirical evidence for optimizing differentiated environmental tax policies, strengthening incentives for green innovation, and improving regional environmental governance.