The improvement of energy efficiency has always attracted significant attention from the government and academia since it is a critical step toward energy efficiency, emission reduction, and low-carbon growth. The low-carbon city pilot is launched in the process of gradual marketization of environmental regulation, and its impact on energy efficiency is of great significance. Using panel data for 280 cities in China from 2007 to 2019, this study explores the local and spatial spillover effects of low-carbon city pilot on energy efficiency using difference-in-difference and spatial difference-in-difference models. The results reflect that low-carbon city pilot improves energy efficiency and that technological innovation, industrial structure upgrading and government orientation can successfully enhance its effects. Moreover, we find that the pilot policy has a negative spillover effect in resource-based and central-western cities, while the spillover effect is not significant in the non-resource-based and eastern regions. This study sheds light on the implementation of low-carbon city pilot to promote urban low-carbon development.
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