How Does Land Financialization Affect Urban Ecosystem Resilience Through Resource Reallocation?

As urbanization progresses rapidly, cities face growing challenges of land resource scarcity and the pressure on green ecological spaces. This not only affects the sustainable development of cities but also presents a major challenge to the resilience of urban ecosystems (UER). As an emerging land use model, land financialization (LF), which involves the circulation and financing of land as a financial asset, has become an important means to promote UER. Therefore, this paper examines 221 prefecture-level cities across mainland China to explore the impact of land financialization on urban ecological resilience and aims to reveal the specific pathways through which land financialization improves urban ecological resilience through mechanisms like resource reallocation, industrial structure rationalization, green innovation, green signals, and environmental regulation. This paper employs a two-way fixed effects model, robustness tests, and endogeneity tests, supplemented by mechanism and heterogeneity analysis, to explore the impact of LF on UER. The findings show that LF plays a significant role in improving UER. Mechanism analysis reveals that LF significantly boosts UER by optimizing the distribution of land and financial resources, as well as enhancing the rationalization of the industrial structure. Additionally, enterprise green technology innovation, green value, and the intensity of environmental regulation play a positive moderating role in this process. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis reveals the inclusive characteristics of LF on urban ecological transformation. In cities with higher levels of land price distortion, as well as in old industrial cities, small cities, and peripheral cities with poorer resource characteristics and administrative resources, LF has a more significant impact on promoting the improvement of UER. Based on the findings, this paper proposes policy recommendations to promote the improvement of urban green ecology and support the innovation of land financialization. These insights contribute to the theoretical discourse on greenization and provide essential, practical guidance for optimizing the allocation of land and financial resources, as well as establishing a framework for green and high-quality development.