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<p>Whether technology-oriented financial policy can improve city-level Green Total-Factor Energy Efficiency (GTFEE), particularly when climate policy signals are uncertain, remains insufficiently understood. We examine China’s pilot policy for the Integration of Science-Technology and Finance (ISTF) using panel data for 282 prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2023 and a staggered difference-in-differences design. The baseline estimates and a range of identification and robustness exercises indicate that ISTF significantly raises GTFEE. The estimated gain is larger in cities with more developed financial systems, greater R&amp;D intensity, stronger market-oriented institutions, and non-resource-based industrial structures, indicating that local capacity to absorb policy support matters for implementation. Regressions on intermediate outcomes yield channel-consistent associations with eased financing constraints, greater human-capital accumulation, improved market integration, more green innovation, digital-economy development, and industrial upgrading. The estimated policy effect is also larger when local climate-policy uncertainty or firm-level perceived uncertainty is high, but smaller where firms have stronger political connections. Taken together, the findings highlight technology-finance integration as a policy instrument that connects innovation-oriented finance with urban sustainability and helps sustain green investment incentives under policy uncertainty, while its effectiveness depends on local absorptive capacity. The study provides evidence for designing targeted technology-finance policies that contribute to energy-efficiency improvement, sustainable industrial upgrading, and climate-policy implementation.</p>

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Sci-tech finance integration improves urban energy efficiency under climate policy uncertainty: Evidence from China

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月23日

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  • Li Song,
  • Guocheng Ruan,
  • Jiali Yuan,
  • Jianzhong Zhang

摘要

Whether technology-oriented financial policy can improve city-level Green Total-Factor Energy Efficiency (GTFEE), particularly when climate policy signals are uncertain, remains insufficiently understood. We examine China’s pilot policy for the Integration of Science-Technology and Finance (ISTF) using panel data for 282 prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2023 and a staggered difference-in-differences design. The baseline estimates and a range of identification and robustness exercises indicate that ISTF significantly raises GTFEE. The estimated gain is larger in cities with more developed financial systems, greater R&D intensity, stronger market-oriented institutions, and non-resource-based industrial structures, indicating that local capacity to absorb policy support matters for implementation. Regressions on intermediate outcomes yield channel-consistent associations with eased financing constraints, greater human-capital accumulation, improved market integration, more green innovation, digital-economy development, and industrial upgrading. The estimated policy effect is also larger when local climate-policy uncertainty or firm-level perceived uncertainty is high, but smaller where firms have stronger political connections. Taken together, the findings highlight technology-finance integration as a policy instrument that connects innovation-oriented finance with urban sustainability and helps sustain green investment incentives under policy uncertainty, while its effectiveness depends on local absorptive capacity. The study provides evidence for designing targeted technology-finance policies that contribute to energy-efficiency improvement, sustainable industrial upgrading, and climate-policy implementation.