The Impact Of Long-term Natural Risks Of Agricultural Production On Regional Innovation Differences

Innovation is the fundamental driving force for the human society.It promotes technology change and innovation,which are the key factors that lead to productivity difference across companies,regions and countries.For developing countries,innovation is an important way to catch up with or even surpass developed countries.While,regional innovation capabilities do not remain unchanged,but are influenced by many other factors.The size of enterprises,social capital,government support and subsidies,foreign investment,market and institution for innovation are all considered to be the sources of innovation differences between enterprises and regions.However,the existing studies on regional innovation differences and innovation capabilities are basically based on a short-term dimension.Studies on regional innovation differences from a long-term perspective are still scarce.In fact,natural environment especially the natural risks of agricultural production which are most relevant to human society,may lead to the innovation differences between regions in a long-term process by affecting the regional market growth and individual psychology.This paper employs long-term data of natural risks of agricultural production and contemporary regional patent data in China to investigate the impact of natural risks of long-term agricultural production on regional innovation differences and its mechanisms from a long historical perspective.This paper shows that natural risks of long-term agricultural production have a significant positive impact on regional innovation and this impact may be caused by regional market growth and individual psychological traits.Specifically,this article contains three parts:(1)The study of contemporary innovation situation and long-term natural risks situation of agricultural production in China.This paper first investigates the regional innovation in China.The amount of patent applications and authorizations shows the level of regional innovation capability output.Thus,this paper uses the amount of patent applications and patent authorizations which are issued by China’s StateIntellectual Property Office from 1986 to 2012 in different cities in China.We firstly focus on the changes of innovation level in China over the past 26 years.Then,using the patent data of different prefecture-level cities in this period,we analyze the regional innovation differences.After that,with the different patent types(invention patents,practical patents,design patents),we measure the level of innovation quality of in China.Overall,the innovation level has increased rapidly from 1986 and 2012.Especially after 2000,the number of patent applications and patent authorizations increased dramatically.While,regional innovation level is unbalanced in China.The innovation capability of eastern areas are stronger than the western areas.In addition,this paper also investigate the long-term natural risks situation of agricultural production in China.Natural disasters are the main risks faced by human beings in agricultural production.This paper uses the data of Atlas of Droughts and Floods Distribution in China over the Last 500 Years,which are published by the China Meteorological Administration to investigate long-term natural risks of agricultural production in different regions.In this paper,the values of natural risks of agricultural production in each prefecture-level city are obtained by interpolation through ordinary kriging approach.Overall,in the long run,North China Plain,the Middle-Lower Yangtze plains and the southeastern coastal areas have high long-term natural risks of agricultural production.This study is of great significance for understanding the changes of innovation capability in recent years,as well as the regional innovation level and the long-term natural risks of agricultural production in China.(2)The empirical study of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on regional innovation differences.Using the Chinese patent data and the data of Atlas of Droughts and Floods Distribution in China over the Last 500 Years,this paper empirically investigates the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on regional innovation differences at the prefecture-level.The impact of regional innovation differences has been studied on the distribution of natural risks of long-term agricultural production in different regions of China.The empirical study finds that the long-term natural risks of agricultural production significantly affect the regional innovation level.The regions where the long-term natural risks of agricultural production is high,are more likely to show a higher regional innovation capability in the present days in China.To ensure the robustness of the results and remove the endogenous problems caused by the omission of political and financial situations and regional natural environmental differences,this paper verifies the results of this paper by removing megacities and dividing the samples into sub-regions.Long-term natural risks of agricultural production remain significant.The study in this section provides a new and critical explanation for regional innovation.It shows a new perspective for understanding the historical root sources of regional innovation differences.(3)The study on the mechanism of the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on regional innovation differences.This part of the study can be divided into two sub-studies.First,this paper investigates the market mechanism of the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on regional innovation differences.Market growth in the early stage of the region is affected by many factors.While,long-term natural risks of agricultural production may play an important role.Market growth in the early stage then has an impact on innovation capability in present days.Firstly,using the data of long-term natural risks of agricultural production and grain price data in the Qing Dynasty,this paper empirically investigates the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on market growth.We suggest that long-term natural risks of agricultural production promote regional market integration and growth.When natural risks of agricultural production such as natural disasters occur,merchant arbitrage behavior and government disaster relief measures play an important role in connecting the market and promoting regional market growth.After that,this paper further investigates the impact of early market on contemporary innovation.Using the market growth data of different regions in the Qing Dynasty and China’s contemporary patent data,we empirically investigate the impact of early market growth on post-regional innovation and find out that the regions where the extends of markets growth is higher,may show a larger probability to has higher innovation capability.The commercial culture may be an important mechanism for the early market to influence the innovation in the later period.Overall,this section examines the inherent links between long-term natural risks of agricultural production,early markets,and contemporary regional innovation.Secondly,this paper investigates the individual psychological traits mechanism of long-term natural risks of agricultural production affecting regional innovation differences.External natural conditions shape the personality and behavior of the individual in the long-term run.As an important part of external natural conditions,natural risks of agricultural production may affect individual personality in the long-term process,thus affecting the level of innovation in regions.Specifically,this paper uses long-term natural risks of agricultural production data in China and China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)data to investigate the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on individuals trust on others.This study finds that the long-term natural risks of agricultural production promote regional cooperation,thereby promoting regional trust levels.These two parts of the study provide a theoretical understanding of the theoretical mechanism of the impact of long-term natural risks of agricultural production on regional innovation differences.In the summary,this paper proposes a new explanation for the source of regional innovation capability from the long-term historical perspective.That is,the long-term natural risks of agricultural production positively affect the level of regional innovation,and market and individual psychological traits may be two essential mechanisms.This paper may contribute to economic theory in the following aspects:On the one hand,this paper provides a new explanation for the source of innovation.On the other hand,this paper enriches the theory of agricultural production risk and shows the long-term effects of agricultural production risk on shaping human society.In addition,this study reveals the market and individual psychological traits mechanism of long-term natural risks of agricultural production affecting regional innovation level,which has important policy implications for the government to create better market conditions and improve regional individual psychological quality.