Did City Brand Improve Technological Innovation Quality of Organizations? Prefecture-Level Evidence from China

Based on the panel data of listed companies and prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2019, this paper uses the multi-stage difference-in-differences (DID) model to investigate the influence of the brand value brought by the Civilized City Policy on the technological innovation of organisations. The results show that the brand effect brought by Civilized City Policy can significantly promote the innovation level of the local enterprises. Such city brand effect can be achieved through the promotion of R&D innovation input intensity and the direct innovation output of the enterprises. The results are robust after different methods of robustness test. In addition, heterogenous effects exist under different levels of city development, ownership of enterprises and the industry attributes. Specifically, in first-tier and second-tier cities, non-state-owned enterprises and high-tech industry enterprises benefit more from the brand effect of the Civilized City Policy. The increased government support for scientific and technological innovation, greater business environment, talents convergence from other cities and alleviation of financial constraint are the key mechanisms for the Civilized City policy to affect technological innovation