Abstract: Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone shoulders the important mission of getting through Northern Cities′ opening to “The Belt and Road” and serving the construction of Beijing- Tianjin- Hebei Urban Agglomeration. Based on the test of the economic growth effect of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, this paper focuses on the analysis of the economic driving effect and its driving mechanism of Tianjin pilot free trade zone.The results show that the establishment of the Pilot Free Trade Zone has effectively driven the rapid growth of regional economy, and the policy effect of the coastal Pilot Free Trade Zone is significantly better than that of the inland Pilot Free Trade Zone, which provides a reference for the national implementation of Pilot Free Trade Zone strategy and the location of Pilot Free Trade Zone. As a whole, the establishment of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone has no obvious driving effect on regional economic development. The important reason is that it fails to give full play to the “trade effect”, “capital effect” and “high-end industrial cluster effect” that the Pilot Free Trade Zone should have, and the driving forces of export, foreign direct investment, fixed asset investment and industrial structure upgrading are all in a state of “failure”.

Key words: Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, economic growth effect, double difference method, synthetic control method