Innovative city pilot policy empowers high-quality economic development:empirical analysis based on 284 prefecture-level cities

Based on the panel data of 284 prefecture level cities in China from 2006 to 2021, this paper takes the pilot policies of the innovative cities as a quasi natural experiment and adopts a multi period difference-in-difference model to explore the impact of innovative city pilot policies on high-quality economic development.The results show that the policies can significantly enhance high-quality economic urban development, and this conclusion withstands multiple robustness tests;The entrepreneurial activity has played a partial transmission role in the mechanism of innovative city pilot policies for high-quality economic urban development; Heterogeneity indicates that the innovative city pilot policies have differential impacts on empowering high-quality economic urban development,and this difference is more significant in cities along the Hu-Huanyong Line and in the central and western regions.