IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i3p1050-d1578590.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toward Sustainable Development: The Impact of Green Fiscal Policy on Green Total Factor Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Peikai Luo

    (School of Government, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China)

  • Chenchu Zhang

    (School of Government, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China)

  • Bohui Cheng

    (School of Government, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China)

Abstract

Green fiscal policy draws worldwide attention from policymakers as a potential mechanism that contributes to sustainable development. However, although many studies have discussed the economic consequences of green fiscal policy, there is still a lack of studies that systematically quantify the productivity impacts of green fiscal policy. Therefore, to fill this gap, China’s Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy Pilot (ECER) and difference-in-differences (DID) identification method were chosen to explore the impact of green fiscal policy on green total factor productivity (GTFP). We find that ECER significantly enhances urban GTFP, and it holds after a series of robustness tests. Moreover, we explore the mediating mechanisms that may explain this effect: government environmental regulation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure optimization. Further analysis shows that the positive effect of ECER is more significant when (1) government transparency is high; (2) government financial autonomy is high; (3) government digital transformation is high; (4) the city’s resource endowment is high; and (5) the city’s economic development level is high. Overall, our study provides new insights into the economic consequences of green fiscal policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Peikai Luo & Chenchu Zhang & Bohui Cheng, 2025. "Toward Sustainable Development: The Impact of Green Fiscal Policy on Green Total Factor Productivity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-21, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:1050-:d:1578590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/3/1050/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/3/1050/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, Chi-Chuan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "How does green finance affect green total factor productivity? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Wang, Jing & Hu, Xuemeng & Song, Jian, 2024. "Unleashing the power of green fiscal policies: Driving energy efficiency in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    3. Fernando Broner & Paula Bustos & Vasco Carvalho, 2011. "Sources of comparative advantage in polluting industries," Economics Working Papers 1331, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 2019.
    4. Qian, Yingyi & Roland, Gerard, 1998. "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1143-1162, December.
    5. Chen, Yvonne Jie & Li, Pei & Lu, Yi, 2018. "Career concerns and multitasking local bureaucrats: Evidence of a target-based performance evaluation system in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 84-101.
    6. Cai, Xiqian & Lu, Yi & Wu, Mingqin & Yu, Linhui, 2016. "Does environmental regulation drive away inbound foreign direct investment? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 73-85.
    7. Zheng, Mingbo & Feng, Gen-Fu & Jang, Chyi-Lu & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2021. "Terrorism and green innovation in renewable energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    8. Sam Fankhauser & Alex Bowen & Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezlepr�tre & David Grover & James Rydge & Misato Sato, 2012. "Who will win the green race? In search of environmental competitiveness and innovation," GRI Working Papers 94, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    9. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Misato Sato, 2017. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Competitiveness," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 183-206.
    10. Alt, James E. & Lassen, David Dreyer, 2006. "Fiscal transparency, political parties, and debt in OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1403-1439, August.
    11. Erdogan, Sinan, 2024. "Linking green fiscal policy, energy, economic growth, population dynamics, and environmental degradation: Empirical evidence from Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    12. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    13. Ke Mao & Pierre Failler, 2022. "Local Government Debt and Green Total Factor Productivity—Empirical Evidence from Chinese Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-13, September.
    14. Zhao, Jun & Jiang, Qingzhe & Dong, Xiucheng & Dong, Kangyin & Jiang, Hongdian, 2022. "How does industrial structure adjustment reduce CO2 emissions? Spatial and mediation effects analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    15. Akai, Nobuo & Sakata, Masayo, 2002. "Fiscal decentralization contributes to economic growth: evidence from state-level cross-section data for the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 93-108, July.
    16. Rodden, Jonathan, 2003. "Reviving Leviathan: Fiscal Federalism and the Growth of Government," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(4), pages 695-729, October.
    17. Wang, Yafei & Bai, Ying & Quan, Tianshu & Ran, Rong & Hua, Lei, 2023. "Influence and effect of industrial agglomeration on urban green total factor productivity—On the regulatory role of innovation agglomeration and institutional distance," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1158-1173.
    18. Zhang, Ning & Kong, Fanbin & Choi, Yongrok & Zhou, P., 2014. "The effect of size-control policy on unified energy and carbon efficiency for Chinese fossil fuel power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 193-200.
    19. Song, Malin & Du, Juntao & Tan, Kim Hua, 2018. "Impact of fiscal decentralization on green total factor productivity," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 359-367.
    20. Aiping Chen & Huiying Chen, 2021. "Decomposition Analysis of Green Technology Innovation from Green Patents in China," Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Hindawi, vol. 2021, pages 1-11, May.
    21. Yafei Wang & Li Xie & Yi Zhang & Chunyun Wang & Ke Yu, 2019. "Does FDI Promote or Inhibit the High-Quality Development of Agriculture in China? An Agricultural GTFP Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-19, August.
    22. Feng, Nan & Ge, Jiamin, 2024. "How does fiscal policy affect the green low-carbon transition from the perspective of the evolutionary game?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    23. Papyrakis, Elissaios & Gerlagh, Reyer, 2004. "The resource curse hypothesis and its transmission channels," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 181-193, March.
    24. Sun, Jile & Zhang, Na & Sun, Yang & Su, Yong, 2024. "Fiscal policy’s impact on the efficiency of natural resources for a green economic recovery," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    25. Fan, Hongmin & Liang, Chen, 2023. "The pollutant and carbon emissions reduction synergistic effect of green fiscal policy: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jinzhi Tong & Youyou Yang & Chunhua Zheng & Minglan Zheng, 2024. "Do Fiscal Incentives Contribute to Pollution Control? Empirical Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-21, November.
    2. Xu, Jian & Sheng, Yan, 2023. "Regulations, politics, and firm green innovation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 13-32.
    3. Hu, Hui & Qi, Shaozhou & Chen, Yuanzhi, 2023. "Using green technology for a better tomorrow: How enterprises and government utilize the carbon trading system and incentive policies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Lin, Boqiang & Zhu, Junpeng, 2019. "Impact of energy saving and emission reduction policy on urban sustainable development: Empirical evidence from China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 12-22.
    5. Zhuoxi Yu & Yu Wu & Zhichuan Zhu, 2023. "Fiscal Decentralization, Environmental Regulation and High-Quality Economic Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-20, May.
    6. Liu, Yang & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2023. "How does natural resource abundance affect green total factor productivity in the era of green finance? Global evidence," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Shinsuke Tanaka & Kensuke Teshima & Eric Verhoogen, 2022. "North-South Displacement Effects of Environmental Regulation: The Case of Battery Recycling," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 271-288, September.
    8. Mathilde Maurel & Thomas Pernet-Coudrier, 2020. "New Evidence on the Soft Budget Constraint: Chinese Environmental Policy Effectiveness in Private versus SOEs," Post-Print halshs-02469382, HAL.
    9. Kai Lin & Yanli Shi & Hong Xu, 2023. "Can Grassroots Governments’ Environmental Attention Effectively Improve Air Pollution? Empirical Evidence from Satellite Remote Sensing Technology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-19, October.
    10. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Agnese Sacchi, 2017. "The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1095-1129, September.
    11. Liu, Donghua & Ren, Shenggang & Li, Wenming, 2022. "SO2 emissions trading and firm exports in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    12. Zhang, Ming & Zhao, Yingxue, 2023. "Does environmental regulation spur innovation? Quasi-natural experiment in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    13. Alice Y. Ouyang & Rui Li, 2021. "Fiscal decentralization and the default risk of Chinese local government debts," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 641-667, July.
    14. Yanhong Feng & Shuanglian Chen & Pierre Failler, 2020. "Productivity Effect Evaluation on Market-Type Environmental Regulation: A Case Study of SO 2 Emission Trading Pilot in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-27, October.
    15. Zhang, Shengling & Wu, Zihao & He, Yinan & Hao, Yu, 2022. "How does the green credit policy affect the technological innovation of enterprises? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    16. Hongxia Xu & Ning Xu, 2024. "Industrial Co-Agglomeration and Urban Green Total Factor Productivity: Multidimensional Mechanism and Spatial Effect," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-23, October.
    17. Huang, Youxing & Xu, Qi & Zhao, Yanping, 2021. "Short-run pain, long-run gain: Desulfurization investment and productivity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Galinato, Gregmar I. & Chouinard, Hayley H., 2018. "Strategic interaction and institutional quality determinants of environmental regulations," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 114-132.
    19. He, Zhenyu & Tang, Yuwei, 2023. "Local environmental constraints and firms’ export product quality: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    20. Zhang, Kaixia & Li, Weibing, 2024. "Understanding the puzzle of polluting companies' social responsibility," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:1050-:d:1578590. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.