Abstract: As an important achievement of institutional innovation,the policy of innovative pilot cities can promote urban green innovation by optimizing the industrial structure,encouraging government and corporate investment,accelerating financial development,and attracting outstanding talents.It can increase the city's green invention patents and green utility model patents,and it has the greatest positive effect on alternative energy and energy conservation patents in the IPC Green Inventory.We also find that the pilot city policy has more obvious incentives for green innovation in cities with higher degree of opening up,lower degree of industrial agglomeration and greater level of environmental regulation.From the perspective of spatial dimension,both the pilot city policy and green innovation have a significant effect of spatial spillover.The spillover effect of the pilot city policy shows a declining trend with increasing distance.In order to further encourage urban innovation practices with the objective of green and low carbon,we should start with accelerating the summary and promotion of pilot experience,adopting differentiated strategies based on local conditions,emphasizing green innovation incentives on the output side,and strengthening regional green innovation cooperation,so as to better realize the effective coordination and deep integration of urban “innovation” and “green”.

Key words: national innovative pilot cities, urban green innovation, green patent, DID, spatial spillover