In recent years, the expansion of local government debt (LGD) in China has caused widespread concern. Enhancing green total factor productivity (GTFP) is an important way to coordinate resources, environment, and regional development and is an important indicator to realize the transformation of green economic development. Scientific assessment of the impact of LGD on GTFP helps promote the transformation of green economic development. This paper selects sample data from 271 cities in China from 2010 to 2019 and empirically investigates the mechanisms of LGD, green innovation, and financial market development on GTFP. The results show that (1) LGD expansion significantly suppresses GTFP in China; (2) green innovation mediates between the two, and LGD suppresses GTFP by reducing the level of green innovation; and (3) financial market development can mitigate the negative impact of LGD on urban GTFP. Therefore, the governance of LGD should be strengthened, the financial market environment should be optimized, the distortion of financial resources should be corrected, and innovative financing modes such as green finance and green credit should be encouraged to enhance GTFP.

Achieving sustainable development goals is a challenge for countries. The core way is to enhance the green total factor productivity. While the literature has examined the various external institutional factors, there is a lack of research on the impact of intellectual property protection (IPP), which is an important external institution. This study adopts the differences-in-differences (DID) model and propensity scores matching (PSM) using the Chinese intellectual property model city policy (IPMP), as a quasi-natural experiment, and Chinese cities’ panel data from 2005 to 2019 to investigate the effect of IPP on sustainable development. The findings demonstrate that: (1) The IPMP significantly increases urban GTFP. (2) Mediation mechanism analyses show that the IPMP can support urban GTFP by fostering technological advancement, boosting human capital, luring foreign direct investment, and modernizing industrial structure. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the Chinese central region, the eastern region, and the region with more fiscal transparency are where the IPMP has the greatest promotion effect on GTFP. Lastly, this study provides several recommendations for the improvement of sustainability in China.

In response to climate change, governments have adopted various climate policies. However, climate policy uncertainty (CPU) may have important implications for the business sector. Is enterprise green innovation (GI) affected by CPU? This study investigates the impact of CPU on enterprise GI. The China CPU index is created first in this study. It uses panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2021 to explore the impact of CPU on GI through the fixed effects model, the mediating effects model, and the moderating effects model. The results show that: (1) CPU significantly suppresses GI, according to the findings. (2) CPU inhibits enterprise GI by exacerbating enterprise financing constraints. (3) Government subsidies can mitigate the inhibiting effect of CPU on GI. (4) There is heterogeneity in the negative impact of CPU on enterprise GI, mainly on non-state-owned enterprises. This study suggests several recommendations for coping with CPU in China.