创新型产业集群政策与企业数字创新OACHSSCD

Innovative industrial clusters serve as a key force to advance Digital China development and cultivate new quality productive forces.This paper utilizes data from A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2023.Leveraging the quasi-natural experiment of innovative industrial cluster policies,it employs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of these policies on enterprise digital innovation(EDI)and their underlying mechanisms.The pilot policy for innovative industrial clusters,approved in batches by the Ministry of Science and Technology from 2013 to 2023,adopts a staggered,phased reform approach,which provides an identification basis for the quasi-experimental method. The results show that the policy can promote EDI,and this conclusion remains valid after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests.Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy systematically drives digital innovation through regional digital ecosystem empowerment and micro-level digital ecosystem embedding.Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this enhancement is more pronounced in the eastern regions,industries with high market concentration,technology-intensive enterprises,and large-scale enterprises.Therefore,efforts should be made to optimize cluster recognition and evaluation mechanisms to strengthen the orientation toward digital innovation efficiency;deepen collaborative innovation networks within clusters to leverage the hub function of leading enterprises;and establish a support system centered on the precise allocation of factors to enhance systematic empowerment of digital innovation. The innovations are threefold.First,this paper expands the research perspective on the drivers of EDI.It directly links the pilot policy for innovative industrial clusters with EDI,empirically testing the promoting effect of cluster establishment on EDI.Second,through empirical testing and theoretical analysis,this paper examines the process by which cluster policies promote EDI through structural mechanisms.Against the backdrop of Digital China development,it explicitly reveals specific pathways through which industrial clusters enhance innovation efficiency in digital contexts.This provides micro-level evidence for understanding the transformation of industrial clusters from factor aggregation to innovation empowerment.Finally,after drawing the basic conclusions,this paper further uncovers the heterogeneous effects of the policy across different regions,industries,and enterprise sizes.Based on these findings,this paper offers targeted policy recommendations,aiming to optimize the design and implementation of cluster support policies according to regional characteristics,market structures,and enterprise types,so as to effectively stimulate enterprise digital innovation vitality and advance the high-quality development of the digital economy.