Innovation,Social Filter And Regional Economic Growth

Although the new growth theory attaches importance to the role of innovation for economic growth,it ignores the impact of intra-regional social and economic factors on transforming innovation into economic growth.In 1999,Rodríguez-Pose first proposed the concept of social filter for describing the impact of economic and social conditions on transforming innovation into growth of a region,thus creating the new field of social filter.At present,the research of social filter is in the ascendant.Foreign researches mainly focuses on the connotation of social filter,the measurement index and method of social filter,theories and empirical analysises about the impact of social filter on innovation and transformation of innovation into growth.In general,the research of social filter is still in the initial stage,many problems need to be discussed deeply and systematically.In the background of China's vigorous implementation of strategy of innovation-driven development,how to transform innovation into economic growth is a major practical problem,and an academic problem to be studied urgently.It has been recognized that regional economic and social conditions have an important impact on the transformation of innovation into growth,however,it is lack of researches using the concept of social filter and related theories and method.In fact,there is a lot of “knowledge paradox” phenomenon in China's regional economic development.Therefore,by introducing concepts and related theories of social filter,we can scientifically analyze the impact of regional economic and social conditions on the transforming innovation into growth,which is necessary for forming innovation-driven development mechanism in various regions,promoting economic restructuring and development.This paper mainly discusses the following issues:(1)The concept and definition of social filter.(2)Selecting the index system and methods to measure social filter based on China's national conditions and data availability.(3)The mechanism and way that social filter affecting innovation transforming into growth.(4)Quantitative study on how social filter affects innovation transforming into economic growth by social filter index.The main conclusions can be summarized as follows.Firstly,social filter is the medium layer where the local conditions are interwoven in the regional organization that a series factors affect innovation transforming to growth capacity mainly consisted of intangible factors such as institutional conditions,social capital,human capital and cultural factors.Social filter represents the regional innovation,knowledge absorption capacity and the attractiveness for production factors.The role of social filter in the transformation of innovation into growth is characterized by incubation,suitability,conductivity and barrier.Secondly,based on the definition of social filter,it is necessary to measure the social filter according to the availability and representation of the indicators,and mainly select relevant indicators such as government support,social capital,human capital and cultural inclusion and so on.These indicators reveal different characteristics of social filter in different dimensions and degrees,and there are strong correlations or overlapping information between some indicators.Principal component analysis will be applied as a comprehensive indicator,known as the social filter index.Thirdly,by the measurement of the social filter index of each city,it is found that more than 70% of the cities in the sample are “innovative averse” cities,there is still a lot of regional resistance to building an innovative country.The relationship of R&D strength and social filter shows that “high-high” cities are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal developed areas.It is expected that the eastern part of China is still the main area for innovation and development for some time in the future.Fourthly,the main way for social filter affecting innovation transforming into growth is the transmission of knowledge and technology,absorption and utilization.The main mechanism for social filter affecting innovation transforming into growth is that social filter affect the scale return of R&D investment in knowledge production,and then affect the rate of innovation growth.Moreover,the social filter will affect the use of regional knowledge spillovers in other regions.Finally,social filter will dominate the spatial reallocation of production factors,such as the extrusion effect.Fifthly,on the basis of the semi-endogenous growth model of the four sectors,incorporating the social filter into the knowledge production function of the R&D sector,we construct the model of the social filter affecting innovation transforming into growth.The equilibrium solution finds that the advantages and disadvantages of social filter will send the scaling effect of technology accumulation in R&D department to other departments affecting capital accumulation and technological progress,which in turn affects production and consumption and ultimately affects economic growth.Sixthly,in the empirical analysis,by controlling the individual fixed effect,shows the evidence of “knowledge paradox”.The role of social filter in economic growth is also negative,considering the endogenous and intermediate mechanism and other factors,the results remain.It shows that China's urban innovation system is generally not mature,the negative impact of social filter can not be ignored.Compared with the existing researches,this paper has made new progress in the following aspects.First and foremost,the concept of social filter was redefined.Since Rodríguez-Pose firstly proposed social filter,it has not yet given a targeted and complete definition.This restricts in-depth,systematic research on the consensus about the concept,which is not conducive to the construction of a consistent understanding of the same,logical unity of social filtertheory and methods.The concept of social filter proposed in this paper is from the regional organization,which is the medium layer of the organization,it is easy to reveal why there a regional filter mechanism,laiding a good foundation for the intuitive understanding of the existence of social filter.Secondly,the social filter index which reflects the concept of social filter connotation and suitable for our national conditions is established.Compared with developed countries,China's economic characteristics are different.Firstly,different economic system,China is a planned economy with government intervention in the economy,the government impact on economic activities.Secondly,China has a large number of rural surplus labor force,the rigidity of the labor market is less serious.Thirdly,the scale of population movement in China is huge,and the cultural blending brought about by this population movement can not be ignored.Based on the understanding of the connotation of social filter and the basic national conditions of our country,although it is limited by the availability of data in the prefecture-level cities,the indicators in this paper such as proportion of science and technology and education expenditure,Internet coverage,the proportion of students in higher education,the proportion of floating population and the proportion of foreign companies and other indicators still have a certain representativeness.Thirdly,with the idea of social filter advocated by Rodríguez-Pose,this paper attempts to explore the mechanism and path of innovation into regional economic growth from “three concepts” and “two functions”.Three concepts refer to the relationship between spaces,social filter and knowledge spillovers.Among “three concepts”,the relationship space is the carrier of regional division of labor and cooperation,social filter is the premise of innovation and development,knowledge spillovers is another source of knowledge accumulation.Two functions refer to the knowledge production function and the regional economic growth function.The ability of knowledge production determines the level of total factor productivity in the region,the flow of factors leads to the reallocation of factors of production in space,and social filter will affect the regional knowledge production and factor flow.Thus,social filteris well connected with innovation and economic growth.Lastly,there is still no researches on the social filter of various regions in our country,and the transformation of innovation into growth as so far.In this paper,by the established social filter index and the empirical model of the social filter affecting innovation into growth.The social filter index of each region is calculated respectively,and the influence of social filter on the transformation of regional innovation into growth is analyzed,which provides a basis for the follow-up researches.