Can technological finance cooperation pilot policy improve energy efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China

Whether the technological finance cooperation pilot (TFCP) policy in China can promote energy efficiency remains under investigated. Using the dataset covering 284 cities in China from 2003 to 2019, this paper adopts the Super-SBM model with undesirable outputs to measure energy efficiency. Based on this efficiency, the Difference-in-Differences model (DID) and Spatial Durbin model (SDM) are employed to discuss the impact of TFCP policy on energy efficiency. Results demonstrate that TFCP policy has significantly promoted energy efficiency. And the conclusion is still valid after the robustness checks and endogenous treatment has been carried out. The impact of the TFCP policy on energy efficiency is heterogeneous, depending on the geographical, administrative, and resource characteristics of cities. To be specific, the promotion effect tends to be pronounced in east-central cities, high-ranking cities, and high-tech cities. Moreover, TFCP policy could significantly improve energy efficiency through the effects of technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and financial development. A further policy spillover analysis shows that TFCP policy has exerted a remarkable incentive influence on energy efficiency locally, while the neighboring cities are inhibitive. To sum up, this research is of important theoretical value and policy-making reference on green economy transformation for cities with differential features and energy utilization capacity, by shedding light on the impacts of such a technological finance cooperation system on energy efficiency.