Agglomeration Of Regional Technological Innovation: Theory, Mechanism And Empirical Research

Technological Innovation is to a large extent the derivations of industry civilization.With the emerging spatial agglomeration of industries,the change of spatial pattern of industries will probably influence the regional innovating capability. This dissertation would analyze the effects of industry agglomeration on regional innovation from the perspective of demand and supply by using modern economic methodology.Then Technical Efficiency,patent application and Malmquist Index will be employed to measure innovation followed by systematic tests of effects of industry agglomeration on regional innovation.On these bases,some illuminations and countermeasures will be put up toward the pressing topic such as distribution of industry and innovation,the strategies of national and regional innovation,etc.The dissertation can be divided into four sections.Section 1,including chapter 1 and chapter 2,puts forward the base of this research.Chapter 1 mainly introduces the background,objectives and purport of this thesis,delineates the clues and research framework,and present the main contents and conclusions,innovating points and defects of the whole work chapter 2 will make a summarizing retrospect on the relevant researches of industry agglomeration,regional innovation,and especially the effect of industry agglomeration on regional technological innovation,and then we will find the interesting points of this paper.Section 2 is theoretical module which includes chapter 3 and 4.Chapter 3 will use S-D-S model to explore the formation of spatial agglomeration of innovation under different industry distribution through a three-sector framework,and analyze the influences of change in parameters on the spatial agglomeration of innovation. Chapter 4 will be devoted to studying,from the perspective of innovation supply,the three main forces of agglomeration like specialization,diversification and urban developments and their roles on regional innovating capabilities.Section 3,including chapter 5,6,7,endeavor to make empirical analysis.The fifth chapter will use stochastic frontier analysis to test the influences of clusters on firm,s Technical Efficiency based on the sample extracted from Yong-Tai-Wen region of Zhejiang Province.The sixth chapter will use patent application data to regress total patent applications,inventions,utility models and designs on specialization, diversity and urban development and their interactive terms to examine their effects on regional innovation.The seventh chapter will use Malmquist index to make empirical studies.DEA will be used to compute the productivities of 19 two digit industries in 30 provincial regions to reflect technological innovation level indirectly. The regressions of them on specialization,diversity and competitive effects for every industry will also be carried out to examine and explain the influences of them on differences in productivity across provinces.The fourth section,chapter 8,is directed for conclusions and illuminations.We will refine the conclusions of the whole dissertation and bring forward countermeasures toward Chinese optimum spatial distribution of industries and innovation,regional innovation strategies.The main conclusions includes:(1) The equilibrium of innovation agglomeration will exist regardless of the distribution of industry if transaction costs of innovation meet some conditions.(2) The specialization has basically positive influences on regional technological innovation.The stochastic frontier analysis shows that firms in clusters really perform better in technical efficiency than other firms which locates outside clusters.Regressions based on patent applications show that the specialization level in each province influence positively the total patent applications,inventions, utility model and designs significantly.However,the empirical results based on Malmquist Index don't find the specialization imposes positive effects on all two-digit industries although it really has some active roles as a whole.Furthermore,the author finds that specialization makes more contribution to improvement of Technique Efficiency than that of Technology Change for some industries.(3) Diversity plays a significant active role in the amount of total patent applications,inventions,utility model except designs.The empirical results based on Malmquist index indicate that diversity can promote productivities of some industries significantly,but the author doesn't find the diversity has systematic pattern in terms of the influences on Total Factor Productivity,Technical Efficiency and Technology Progress for either traditional industry or high-tech industries.(4) Regressions based on patent applications show that urban development can also promote regional innovation,but the two different measures may lead to differences in regression outcomes.When measuring urban development by the ratio of amount of urban employment to total number,the urban development will enhance the level of total patent application, inventions and utility model significantly except patent applications of design.When measuring urban development by number of different scale cities,the results indicate that large scale cities have positive effects on regional innovation while the number of medium-sized cities seems to play an insignificant role.In addition,the interactive term between specialization and urban development doesn't have positive influences on regional patent application,but the interactive term between diversity and urban development shows significant positive influences on regional patent applications.The main illuminations include:(1)The spatial pattern that innovation agglomerates in coastal regions while general manufacturing industries scatter around all regions might be a reasonable distribution model.This could reconcile the balanced cross-regional development to realization of advantage of leading regions.(2) The local government should be committed to forging a highly effective regional innovation system comprising specialized industrial districts,diversified industries and developed cities,enhance regional innovating capabilities by exerting the collaborating functions of specialization,diversity and cities.(3) It is recommended that we should reconsider the relationship between industry distribution and regional innovation.Although industry agglomeration can bring some advantages for regional innovation,it doesn't mean that agglomeration will definitely lead to higher regional innovating capabilities or productivities because its role is contingent on other conditions.