Descriptive statistics.

In the context of the digital economy, digital government construction is increasingly regarded as a vital approach to enhancing urban innovation governance. This study uses panel data from 292 prefecture-level and above cities in China spanning 2012–2023 and adopts a difference-in-differences (DID) model centered around the 2017 e-government pilot policy to systematically evaluate the impact of digital government on intra-city collaborative innovation. The findings reveal that: (1) the e-government policy significantly increased the frequency and scale of patent collaborations within cities, indicating its positive effect in stimulating multi-actor cooperation, optimizing factor allocation, and facilitating knowledge sharing; (2) mechanism analysis shows that digital government enhances fiscal efficiency and administrative transparency, strengthens targeted support for science and education sectors, and promotes the spatial agglomeration of innovation resources toward urban cores, thereby reducing collaboration costs and improving the efficiency of innovation networks; (3) heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy effect is more pronounced in highly market-oriented regions and non-provincial capital cities, reflecting differences in institutional adaptability and resource-driven incentives. The study provides micro-level empirical evidence for understanding the collaborative innovation effects of digital government and offers theoretical insights for regional governance and policy design.

在数字经济背景下，数字政府建设日益被视为提升城市创新治理水平的关键路径。本研究采用2012—2023年中国292个地级市及以上城市的面板数据，以2017年电子政务试点政策为核心构建双重差分（difference-in-differences，DID）模型，系统评估数字政府对城市内部协同创新的影响效应。研究结果显示：(1) 电子政务试点政策显著提升了城市内部专利合作的频次与规模，表明其在激发多主体协作、优化要素配置以及促进知识共享方面具有积极作用；(2) 机制分析表明，数字政府可通过提升财政效率与行政透明度、强化对科教领域的精准支持，推动创新资源向城市核心区空间集聚，进而降低合作成本、提升创新网络运行效率；(3) 异质性分析显示，该政策效应在市场导向程度较高的地区以及非省会城市中更为显著，反映出制度适配性与资源驱动激励的区域差异。本研究为理解数字政府的协同创新效应提供了微观层面的经验证据，同时为区域治理与政策设计提供了理论参考。