Abstract: As a primary mission of economic structure adjustment, the upgrading of industrial structure is one of the principle methods to change the economic growth mode and to achieve the intensive economy development and it can promote the green development of cities, mainly testified by whether it facilitates the increase of green total factor productivity (GTFP), serving as the main driving force of green development. By measuring the GTFP of 266 cities in China from 2006 to 2015 via DDF-ML index, the author formulated the system of industrial structure upgrading from rationalization and optimization and the GMM dynamic panel model to study the relationship between the industrial structure upgrading and the GTFP of the 266 cities. The results show that the GTFP of cities in China grew upwardly in 10 years and featured with path dependence. The optimization has a positive effect on green growth, while rationalization has an obviously different impact on different stages of cities' development. The impact of rationalization is positive for “leading-type” cities, and negative for the “catching-up-type” cities and “backward-type” cities. Therefore, according to the developing levels in different regions, different industrial policies and measures should be worked out for a good interaction mechanism between supporting measures and the industrial structure upgrading, and ultimately drive forward green growth of cities.

Key words: industrial upgrading, rationalization, optimization, the green growth of cities