Effect of new urbanization on cities’ innovation in China: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of a comprehensive pilot

Urbanization drives the concentration of innovation elements and knowledge diffusion, which is conducive to enhancing regional innovation capacity. To meet the developmental needs of the new era, China has released the National New Urbanization Plan (2014–2020) to test the effect of this policy on urban innovation. The 2014 comprehensive pilot project of China’s new urbanization strategy is considered a quasi-natural experiment. This study examines relevant data from cities at the prefecture level and above from 2008 to 2019 using DID, PSM-DID, intermediary effect, and other methods. We established an empirical model to investigate the impact of new urbanization pilot policies on urban innovation. The results indicate that the new urbanization pilot policy can significantly promote an increase in urban innovation capacity. The heterogeneity of the impact of new urbanization pilot policies is evident in the improvements to urban grade, region, scale, etc. Regarding function mechanism, new urbanization can promote urban innovation through talent gathering, industrial gathering, income scale, and other effects. This paper posits the importance of summarizing the success of the pilot project of new urbanization and explores new urbanization to promote urban innovation from multiple perspectives. We put forth recommendations based on the experience of different cities to implement an urban innovation differentiation strategy in constructing new urbanization.