As a special industrial cluster policy, "development zones" (DZs) represent the growth poles of the regions in which they are located; in China, they fulfill the dual tasks of industrial upgrading and green transformation. While the existing literature has paid close attention to the economic effects of development zones, few efforts have been made to examine their climate effects. Therefore, in the context of China's efforts to achieve "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", this paper for the first time provides evidence of the effect of development zones on urban carbon emission performance; it does this by constructing a difference-in-difference (DID) model, which is based on panel data for Chinese cities in the period 1997-2017. The findings of the study indicate that the establishment of development zones had a positive influence on urban carbon emission performance without time lag effects. Our heterogeneity analysis of city groups indicated that development zones located in eastern region, or in large or coastal cities, exerted a more significant impact. The mechanism analysis that we conducted demonstrates that development zones promote carbon emissions performance by increasing GDP and reducing carbon emissions. Finally, this paper puts forward a series of policy measures, which are intended to strengthen the environmental benefit of development zones within the context of an urban green transition.
Keywords: Carbon emission performance; China; Development zone; Difference in difference model; Industrial cluster.
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