The transformation and development of resource-based cities has attracted the attentions from all circles. At the end of 2013，China promulgated the National Sustainable Development Planning for Resource-Based Cities（2013-2020）. Objectively evaluating the impact of this policy is not only important for the implementation and improvement of the policy itself，but also can be used as a reference for other resource planning strategies. By using the panel data of 233 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2015，this study found that the policy did not effectively promote the economic growth in resource-based cities，and even had a negative impact on declining，mature and regenerative resource-based cities. Through the mechanism test，it is found that there existed “policy trap” in the implementation. Further，the key point of perfecting the policy could be concluded as strengthening the construction of the soft environment，establishing a guiding mechanism combining with rewards and punishments，giving more policy support to help resource-based cities adjust the industrial structure and reduce the resource dependence，and accumulating human capital to create new driving forces for the economic development of resource-based cities.