Does national civilized city selection improve the green total factor productivity? Based on quasi-natural experiment in China

National civilized city selection activity organized by Chinese government is a kind of policy taking both environmental protection and economic growth into consideration. It is of great importance to high-quality economic growth of China. This paper mainly selects data of 280 at and above prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2016 and combines multi-stage difference-in-differences model to test the impacts of national civilized city selection on green total factor productivity (GTFP). The empirical results show that national civilized city selection activity can significantly promote the GTFP and have strong robustness. And the positive influence can be achieved through the mechanism of city innovation. In addition, heterogenous effects exist under different city administrative hierarchies and different regions. Finally, conclusions of this research for one thing provide empirical evidences for mutual development of economic growth and environmental protection; for another thing, this paper enriches policy evaluation researches of national civilized city by including environmental factors in total factor productivity calculation. •City carbon emission is used in evaluating green total factor productivity (GTFP).•National civilized city selection has positive impact on GTFP and is robust.•City innovation plays a vital role in the process of the policy promotes GTFP.•The policy effect varies in different city administrative hierarchies and regions.