Low-altitude economic policies and entrepreneurial activity: Policy push or market pull?

Based on the panel data of Chinese cities from 2010 to 2023, this study constructs a difference-in-differences model to systematically evaluate the causal effect of low-altitude economic policies on regional entrepreneurial activities and the mechanism of their impact. The study selects the national low-altitude economic pilot policies as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the multi-period difference-in-differences method for empirical testing. The study finds that low-altitude economic policies significantly enhance the entrepreneurial activity in the pilot areas. This conclusion remains valid after undergoing a series of robustness tests such as parallel trend test, placebo test, replacement of dependent variables, and control of potential confounding factors. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy effect is more significant in areas with net population inflow, large-scale cities, and higher social security levels. Mechanism testing reveals that low-altitude economic policies mainly promote entrepreneurial activities through the intermediary channel of fiscal investment expansion, that is, the implementation of the policy leads to an increase in government special fiscal expenditures, the improvement of low-altitude infrastructure and the cultivation of industrial chain supporting enterprises, thereby reducing entrepreneurial costs and optimizing the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Further analysis reveals that the regional marketization level plays a significant positive regulatory role in this process. The higher the degree of marketization, the better the allocation efficiency of fiscal investment, and the more obvious the policy's promotion effect on entrepreneurship. This indicates that the institutional environment is an important boundary condition for the release of policy effectiveness.