Abstract: Based on the urban panel data of Yangtze River Economic Belt and from the perspective of mobile human capital, this paper explores the spatial-temporal distribution pattern and its driving factors of urban innovation capacity along the Yangtze River Economic Belt by employing the spatial exploratory analysis method and the spatial econometric model. The findings show that there is a clear economic correlation among the urban innovation capabilities, i.e., the coastal cities have stronger innovation capabilities than inland cities, the provincial capital cities have stronger innovation capabilities than the non-provincial capital cities, and the urban innovation capacity declines in a gradient along the “downstream-middle-upstream” of the Yangtze River. The positive correlation among the inter-city innovation capabilities is continuously increasing, which is manifested as “high-high agglomeration” in coastal cities and “low-low agglomeration” in inland cities. Moreover, there is a significant time-space lag in urban innovation capacity, that is, the spillover effect and the Matthew effect. In addition, the total mobile human capital, the mobile human capital inside and outside of the province all have a significant direct effect on the urban innovation capability, which is an important thrust for urban innovation and development. Apart from these, science and technology input, foreign investment, import and export trade are also important factors affecting the urban innovation capacity.

Key words: urban innovation ability, time and space evolution, driving factors, flowing human capital, Yangtze River Economic Belt.