What is the degree of high-quality development of oil–gas resource-based cities in China: based on a new total factor productivity measurement method

Oil–gas resource-based cities play a huge role in China’s social economy, and the proposal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality has made their demand for high-quality development more urgent. This study first proposes high-quality total factor productivity and constructs the static economic system, ecosystem, and social system–Slacks-Based Measure (ESE-SBM) and dynamic economic system, ecosystem, and social system–global Malmquist–Luenberger (ESE-GML) high-quality total factor productivity measurement models based on the panel data of 18 oil–gas resource-based cities from 2007 to 2018; the high-quality development foundation of oil–gas resource-based cities is divided into good, moderate, and poor according to the static ESE-SBM measurement results; and the high-quality development process is divided into good and poor according to the dynamic ESE-GML decomposition results. The results show that: first, since the concept of high-quality development was proposed in 2017, the high-quality total factor productivity of most oil–gas resource-based cities has improved; second, there is a large difference between high-quality total factor productivity, green total factor productivity, and total factor productivity, Yan’an, Yulin, Karamay, and Qingyang are cities with a good foundation for high-quality development, Songyuan, Daqing, and Panjin are moderate, Nanchong, Ordos, Dongying, Guangan, Dazhou, Puyang, Luzhou, Tangshan, Zibo, and Nanyang are poor; third, the average values of pure efficiency change (0.95) and scale efficiency change (0.97) are less than 1, indicating the efficiency of production activities and development scale decline in the process of high-quality development, and the average values of pure technological progress change (1.01) and technological scale change (1.09) are greater than 1, indicating technology and technological scale effect increase in the process of high-quality development. In addition, they have different impacts on the high-quality development of oil–gas resource-based cities. Songyuan, Yulin, Qingyang, Daqing, Dongying, Dazhou, Karamay, Puyang, Luzhou, and Zibo are identified as cities with better high-quality development process, and Nanchong, Yan’an, Ordos, Guangan, Jiuquan, Panjin, Tangshan, and Nanyang are poor. This study is helpful to explore the degree of high-quality development of different oil–gas resource-based cities and changes sources of high-quality total factor productivity.