The impact of pilot policies for low carbon city construction on the development of urban circular economy multiple time-point difference-in-differences model

Introduction As a means of environmental regulation, the low-carbon city pilot policy aims to address climate change and alleviate environmental resource pressures in economic development. The development of low-carbon cities often requires changes to the existing industrial and energy structures, which will have a significant impact on the regional economy. Methods The study is based on panel data from 273 prefecture level cities in China from 2012 to 2022, and uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Entropy Comprehensive Evaluation Method to construct an evaluation index system for urban circular benefits. Finally, the multiple time point differences model and mediation effect model were used to evaluate the impact and influencing factors of policies on urban economy. Results The results indicate that at the 1% level, the explanatory variable coefficient significantly improves the level of urban circular economy development after adding control variables. The construction of low-carbon pilot cities has improved the performance of circular economy development by about 6.42%. The mediating effect of industrial structure rationalization is significantly positive at the 1% significance level, indicating that the construction of low-carbon pilot cities has greatly promoted the coordinated development of industrial relations within China’s low-carbon development regions. Discussion It can be seen that the low-carbon city pilot policy has a significant promoting effect on China’s economic development and the development of urban circular economy. Therefore, it is recommended to further expand the pilot scope of low-carbon cities and fully leverage their promoting role.