Impact of natural resource mining on sustainable economic development: The role of education and green innovation in China

As the extraction and usage of natural resources continue to be a double-edged sword – supporting economic growth but deteriorating the environment- we study the impact of natural resource mining on sustainable economic development in the largest (PPP) economy – China. We use province-level data from 2001 to 2020 and employ econometric panel techniques, such as fixed effects, two-stage least squares, and a battery of robustness tests. We further explore the potential effects of education and green innovation in mitigating/exacerbating the role of natural resources in the Chinese provincial economy. The results show that: (1) Natural resource mining hurts sustainable development, verifying the “resource curse” effect. (2) Green innovation and education restrain the negative impact of resource mining on sustainable development, turning the curse into a blessing. (3) A regional heterogeneity is observed in the impact of resource mining on sustainable development, showing more significant effects in the Western and low-urbanized regions. (4) Green innovation and education can assuage the curse effect of natural resources into gospel effect. Policy implications and recommendations are proposed in light of the findings to promote sustainable economic development in China.