Impact of Green Finance on Urban Ecological and Environmental Resilience: Evidence from China

China’s Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones (GFRIPZ) policy has emerged as a central instrument for promoting sustainable urban development and strengthening Urban Ecological and Environmental Resilience (UEER). However, systematic evidence on its actual effectiveness remains scarce. This study applies a difference-in-differences (DID) model to panel data for 279 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2022 to identify the causal impact of the GFRIPZ policy on UEER and to examine its transmission mechanisms and heterogeneity. Specifically, we incorporate green innovation efficiency and environmental regulation intensity to test the technological and regulatory channels through which green finance operates. The empirical results show that: (1) the GFRIPZ policy significantly improves UEER, and this finding is robust across a range of alternative specifications and robustness checks. (2) Green innovation efficiency and environmental regulation intensity serve as key mechanisms through which the policy enhances UEER. (3) The policy effect is stronger in eastern cities, megacities, small cities, and non-resource-based cities, while it is relatively weaker in central and western cities, medium-sized cities, and resource-based cities. These findings provide additional empirical evidence to inform the refinement and further advancement of the GFRIPZ policy and offer evidence-based implications for urban green development strategies.