Private economy is an important part of the socialist market economy and an internal driving force in the process of regional integration in the Yangtze River delta. It is the foundation of economic stability and the subject of technological innovation. Taking the data of private listed companies in the Yangtze River delta from 2014 to 2018 as the research example, this paper uses the balanced panel fixed effect model to empirically study the impact of executive incentive on the innovation investment, and explores whether there is a substitution ef? fect of executive compensation incentive and executive equity incentive on innovation investment and the moder? ating effect of enterprise growth on the above impact. The results show that: executive compensation incentive and executive equity incentive are positively correlated with innovation input, and their influence on innovation input has lagged effect. Enterprise growth has a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between executive incentive and innovation input. The introduction of enterprise growth will increase the influence of ex? ecutive incentive on innovation input. The interaction between executive compensation incentive and executive equity incentive is negatively correlated with innovation input, and the influence of compensation incentive and equity incentive on enterprise innovation input has obvious substitute effect.