Spatial-Temporal Evolution Of Regional Innovation And Its Impact On Income Inequality

With the world gradually stepping into the era of knowledge economy,technological innovation has shown an increasingly important role in modern society.Innovation can promote economic growth and increase employment rate and laborer's income.At the same time,innovation is critical for countries and enterprises to strengthen their global competitiveness.In academia,innovation has been hotly discussed in economics,management and geography.Regional innovation,the object of this study,means the technological innovation in city-regions,representing by patent applications per million residents.This study mainly focuses on two issues.One is the spatial-temporal evolution of regional innovation,the other is the relationship between regional innovation and income inequality.Analyzing the spatial and temporal changes of innovation can further reveal the law of innovation development and provide a reference for policymaking;studying the influence of innovation on income inequality can help clarify the distribution of benefits brought by innovation and provide a solution for moderating the income discrepancy in China.Different from previous literature,this study takes Chinese city-regions as analysis units,which are less heterogeneous,and breaks the overall China's innovation research mostly in provincial level.It extends the time span of innovation evolution and applies different spatial weight matrixes to define regional spatial interactions.What's more,it investigates how innovation influences the income of different kinds of laborers and then income inequality from both regional and individual perspectives,offering Chinese evidence for the studies concerning the connections between innovation and income inequalityBased on classical theories,including new growth theory,technology gap theory,technology diffusion theory,knowledge spillover theory,innovation influences laborer employment theory and creative class theory,this study first builds a patent application dataset on Chinese prefecture level and above city regions with the help of network reptile technology and describes the temporal and spatial evolution features of innovation since 1986,then analyzes how university impacts on regional innovation and clarifies the link between innovation and income inequality from regional and individual levels respectively,finally,provides suggestions for innovation development.This study draws four conclusions as follows:First,there are absolute beta convergence but internal difference enlargement in innovation development.The increased standard deviation demonstrates that there is no delta convergence during the process of innovation.Whether considering the spatial autocorrelation of regional innovation or not,the absolute beta convergence in innovation development is confirmed.The distribution feature of regional innovation changes from diffusion to agglomeration during the period from 1984 to 2012 Specifically,innovation standards in most areas have significantly increased in different proportions since 1986.From 2001,the innovation level in Eastern Area has been significantly higher than the rest.In 2012,it has emerged high-level agglomerations in Pearl Delta region and Yangtze River Delta region.Shenzhen has achieved the highest level of innovation,and the gap with that of other regions continues to expandSecond,university R&D personnel input and R&D investment both have positive effects on regional innovation.Specifically,the influence of university R&D investment is lagging(lag period is 2 years).Researchers promote regional innovation by publishing papers and books,applying for patent and attending seminars.Due to the greater flexibility,they can adjust their work timely according to different stages and directions of innovation development.Therefore,the positive effect of university R&D personnel on innovation happens in the current.However,because of the difference between disciplines and the lack of effective supervision,the utilization efficiency of R&D investment is low.Therefore,the effect of university R&D investment on regional innovation is laggingThird,innovation shows a positive spillover between city regions.In reality,spatial interactions do not only exist between an area and the other,which are shared with the same boundary or point.Region is likely to interact with several adjoining or geographic neighboring areas.The empirical results in this study show the spillover of innovation between city-regions is positive.That means innovation development in one region benefits innovation in other regions.Frequent interactions between adjoining regions lead to the flow of human capital and knowledge,promoting positive spillover of regional innovationFourth,the relationship between innovation and income inequality is nonlinear.In the study at regional level,the inverse U-shaped relationship between innovation and income inequality has been examined.It means income inequality increases first and then decreases with the development of innovation.In the individual study,innovation is positively related to the income of high-skilled laborer,and the connection between innovation and the income of less-skilled laborer is U-shaped.It means when innovation develops,the income of high-skilled laborer will increase,while the income of less-skilled laborer will decrease first and then increase.The results on individual studies support the conclusions basing on regional studies.Through the above analyses,this study draws the policy implications in following four points:First,the number of university R&D personnel and R&D investment in Northeast Area,Central Area and Western Area are suggested to be increased.Compared with Eastern Area,the number of universities in Northeast,Central and Western Areas is much less,and the university R&D inputs are relatively insufficient.In order to moderate the imbalance of regional innovation,this study proposes to increase the inputs of university R&D personnel and investment in those areas.Supporting university R&D is helpful to improve the initiative of research personnel,increase research standard and then promote the positive effect of university research on regional innovation.Then,innovation level in Northeast,Central and Western Areas would be increased and their gaps with Eastern Area would be narrowed.Second,the cooperation between neighboring regions is proposed to be strengthened for the balanced development of innovation.Both laborer interactions between neighboring areas and innovation organizations across regions are helpful to deepen the innovation cooperation between regions,which could maximize the innovation performance.At the same time,when making the development policy of regional innovation,government should not only think about the positive spillover of innovation,but also take the regional difference of factors into consideration,which would make innovation develop sustainably.Third,knowledge spillover from high-skilled laborer to less-skilled laborer should be promoted.On one hand,the communications between high-skilled and less-skilled laborers should be more frequent.On the other hand,the education level and acceptability of less-skilled laborer,as a recipient,are important aspects to ensure the spillover efficiency.Government should pay more attention to the education development,especially in rural and remote areas.At the same time,it is necessary to develop vocational education and carry out professional skills training for less-skilled laborer.These measures can fundamentally maximize the spillover effect from high-skilled laborer to less-skilled laborer,and finally achieve the goal of narrowing the income gap,maintaining social stability and enhancing resident's happiness.Fourth,government should improve institution environment for less-skilled laborer's employment.In order to make employment compensation become effective,it is necessary to alleviate household registration discrimination in the labor market and improve the employment system of less-skilled laborer(especially migrant worker).It suggests that government should appeal for employment fairness,formulate policies to prohibit enterprises from setting up household registration requirements for candidates during the recruitment process,and set up specialized agencies for less-skilled laborer to provide free right protection services.