Detecting Spillovers in Circular Economy Performance: Moran’s Clustering and the Gendered Digital Inclusion–Waste Infrastructure in Indonesia’s Spatial Development
摘要
The circular economy (CE) plays a key role in sustainable development, yet its regional performance patterns in developing economies remain underexplored. This study presents a Spatial Circular Economy Performance Framework (SCEPF) that analyses the immediate and long-term determinants of the provincial-level Circular Economy Performance Index (CEPI) in Indonesia for 2019–2024, with particular attention to gender-inclusive digitalization and waste-processing infrastructure. By integrating an empirical approach, combining panel regression, mediation analysis, and spatial autocorrelation techniques, the research evaluates the relationships between female digital inclusion and waste management capacity with CE outcomes. The upshot highlights that with every 1% increase in TPS3R (waste collection centre) capacity, there is a roughly 0.83% rise in estimated scores on the CEPI. Conversely, mediation analysis does not support statistical evidence that waste processing capacity mediates the relationship between female digital inclusion and CEPI, indicating an indirect effect of female digital inclusion on CE performance through this channel in the model. Moran’s I of CEPI spatial analysis shows a significant negative spatial autocorrelation (Moran’s I = − 0.2109, p = 0.001) of the dispersed pattern, where higher CE performance in one province does not cluster positively with neighbouring provinces. This study points out that CE development is uneven and not spatially diffused in the Indonesian region. In conclusion, the study highlights that physical waste management infrastructure better enables the business model of the CE at a regional level than just digital inclusion. Woven with infrastructure, gender dimensions, and spatial dynamics into the performance analysis of CE, this research places CEPI as a core strategic diagnostic device in Indonesia’s low-carbon and inclusive development agenda while underlining differentiated and region-specific policy pathways towards CE.