From Institutional Shock to Quality Dividend: The Impact of Central Environmental Protection Inspection on Urban Economic Resilience

Amid global shifts and internal structural risks, enhancing economic resilience is a strategic imperative for high-quality development. This study examines how the central environmental protection inspection (CEPI), a pivotal institutional innovation, reshapes urban economic trajectories through the mechanism of creative destruction. Utilizing data from 296 Chinese prefecture-level cities (2012–2023), we employ double machine learning (DML) to empirically investigate the CEPI’s impact and underlying mechanisms. The findings indicate that the CEPI significantly enhances urban economic resilience against external shocks, a result that remains robust across various sensitivity checks, including alternative sampling and model respecification. This promotional effect exhibits distinct asymmetry, being more pronounced in ordinary cities, polycentric cities, and those with advanced digital infrastructure. Mechanism tests reveal that the CEPI strengthens resilience through green technological innovation and ecological capital accumulation. Furthermore, the synergy between financial resources and government governance willingness effectively transforms external regulatory pressure into an internal adaptive drive. These results provide empirical evidence for the evolutionary logic of urban resilience, offering insights into coordinating high-level ecological protection with economic transformation to enhance regional antirisk capabilities.