Green data center pilots and urban economic resilience: Causal inference based on double machine learning

This study treats the Chinese government’s 2015 Green Data Center Pilot Policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Using panel data from 281 prefecture-level Chinese cities from 2010 to 2022, this study employs a double machine learning model to empirically examine the impact of the Green Data Center Pilot Policy on urban economic resilience, the heterogeneity of its effects, and the mechanisms through which it operates. The results reveal that green data centers can significantly enhance urban economic resilience. This conclusion remains robust after a series of tests, encompassing instrumental variable estimation, excluding outliers, adjusting sample splitting ratios, varying the sample periods, and controlling for other concurrent policies. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the pilot policy’s effect on urban economic resilience is influenced by urban resource endowment, city status, and energy consumption. Specifically, the pilot policy has a stronger positive effect on economic resilience in nonresource-based cities, central cities, and cities with lower energy consumption levels, while its impact on other cities is relatively weaker. Further mechanism tests demonstrate that digital finance and green innovation are significant channels through which the pilot policy enhances urban economic resilience. These findings have important policy implications for Chinese government agencies, indicating the need to promote the coordinated development of digitalization and environmental sustainability in economic and social systems. • Green data centers significantly enhance urban economic resilience. • The effects of green data centers on urban economic resilience are heterogeneous across resource endowments, city status, and energy consumption levels. • Digital finance and green innovation serve as key mechanisms through which green data center policies enhance urban economic resilience. • The findings provide empirical evidence supporting the synergy between digitalization and environmental sustainability in China.