Aiming at boosting financial and economic development in rural areas in China, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission proposed the rural financial innovation pilot program in 2008. In this paper, based on the panel data of 338 cities from 2007 to 2011, the Difference-in-Difference Propensity Score Matching(PSM-DID)was used to evaluate whether the policy was effective in improving finan- cial and economic development and trade of agricultural products. It was found that the program made heteroge- neous impacts on different economic indicators. It imposed positive effects on trade by raising the share of agri- cultural goods within export, but elsewhere its impacts are less articulated. We conclude that the innovation pilot program helped economic development to some extent but more efforts are needed.