Does the Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense Battle implementation enabling the high-quality development of regional energy? A quasi-natural experiment from China

Energy is the lifeline of modern economy and industrial development. Promoting the high-quality development of regional energy is an important step to achieve high-quality economic and social development. This paper takes the energy policy of the Three-Year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky Defense Battle (the Blue Sky Defense Battle) in China as a quasi-natural experiment, and builds a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the impact of this policy on the high-quality development of regional energy based on the panel data of China's 31 provinces from 2015 to 2021. The results show that the Blue Sky Defense Battle has a significant positive effect on regional energy high-quality development, and this conclusion is robust under a series of robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the Blue Sky Defense Battle has a more promote effect on the high-quality development of regional energy in the western and eastern region, as well as in the low and middle income provinces. Mechanism analysis reveals that the Blue Sky Defense Battle promotes the high-quality development of regional energy by improving the level of scientific and technological innovation. Nonlinear analysis verifies that there is a single threshold effect of the level of scientific and technological innovation, the influence of the Blue Sky Defense Battle on the regional energy high-quality development becomes stronger when the scientific and technological innovation level above the threshold. The study provides a reference for policy makers to support the implementation of energy policies such as the Blue Sky Defense Battle and enhance the high-quality development level of regional energy.