Influence of national intellectual property demonstration enterprise policy on urban green innovation: evidence from China

The intellectual property system is an important strategy to establish a strong intellectual property power. How to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and promote green innovation in urban areas is an important issue of the current green and sustainable economic development in China. Therefore, in an attempt to assess the effect of the national intellectual property demonstration enterprise policy on green innovation in urban areas between 2005 and 2021, this paper investigates 277 prefecture-level cities in China. For that, we used the multi-period continuous difference-in-differences model and found that the national intellectual property demonstration enterprise policy has been supporting green innovation in urban areas of China. Moreover, in-depth analysis showed that this positive relationship differs following the number of reviews passed by the enterprises, the capacity of enterprises to hold their status of demonstration enterprises, and the industry in which the enterprises operate. Furthermore, we found that the national intellectual property demonstration enterprise policy promotes green innovation in urban areas through investment agglomeration and information technology support. Therefore, we recommend that policymakers continue the implementation of a dynamic management system and exit mechanism to improve the national intellectual property demonstration enterprise policy. Concurrently, it is of utmost importance to attract investment in urban areas and improve the level of informatization to support green innovation in urban areas.