Abstract:Typical industrialized cities are the key areas of regional coordinated development and new urbanization in the new era. The state has achieved remarkable results in promoting the high-quality development of typical industrialized cities through the establishment of industrial transformation and upgrading demonstration zones. Analyze the mechanism of digital economy affecting the rationalization and upgrading of industrial structure through production, consumption, exchange, distribution and other links , collect the panel data of 27 prefecture level cities where the demonstration zones are located 2012 to 2019, use the global entropy method to construct the digital economy development level index, and empirically test the impact of digital economy on the level of industrial transformation and upgrading of typical industrialized cities, as well as its impact on the speed of industrial transformation, the upgrading of industrial structure and the rationalization of industrial structure. Using the explained variable lag period as an instrumental variable to solve the endogenous problem, the result is still significant. The empirical results show that digital economy can significantly promote the industrial transformation and upgrading of typical industrialized cities, improve the speed of industrial transformation and upgrade the industrial structure, but it is not significant in promoting the rationalization of industrial structure; The role of digital economy in promoting old industrial cities is higher than that of resource-based cities. Based on the empirical conclusions, this paper puts forward policy suggestions for digital economy to promote the transformation and upgrading of typical industrialized cities.