Do local governments walk the talk? Environmental policy expression, semantic structure, and green productivity transformation

This study examines whether local governments’ environmental policy expression translates into improvements in urban green total factor productivity (GTFP). Using panel data for 271 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2024, we construct an environmental policy attention index from government work reports and estimate GTFP with an undesirable-output SBM–GML framework. Large language model-assisted clustering and manual verification classify policy expressions into ecological narrative, pollution control, climate constraint, and end-of-pipe abatement. Two-way fixed effects estimates show a statistically stable but economically limited negative association between environmental policy attention and GTFP. Among the four themes, only climate-constraint expression is marginally negatively associated with GTFP. Dynamic analysis indicates significant negative associations with annual green productivity change and efficiency change, but not with best-practice frontier change. The negative association is concentrated in the eastern region, particularly North and East China. Period-interaction tests show no significant difference between 2006–2018 and 2019–2024, while spatial models suggest cross-regional negative linkages. Overall, the conversion of policy expression into green productivity improvement is neither immediate nor uniform, but is jointly conditioned by policy content, adjustment processes, and regional conditions.