| Since the reform and opening-up policy having been implemented in 1978,China’s economic growth rate has made remarkable achievements,and China’s economy has continuously improved its ranking in the world.However,such rapid growth is realized by increasing the input of production factors,accompanying by a large amount of resource consumption and environmental pollution.Since 2010,China’s economic growth has been on a downward trend.In May 2014,General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the transformation of China’s economy from high-speed growth to medium-high growth will become a new normal.He put forward that "we should not only have mountains of gold and silver,but also have clear waters and green mountains",which also reflects the importance of the coordinated development between China’s future economic development and environmental protection.In order to realize the sustainable development,China’s economic development mode must be changed from the extensive mode to the intensive mode.China ought to make a change from"Made in China" and "the processing base" to "Created in China" and "innovation base",and the essence of change is innovation.To this end,the 18th national congress of the communist party of China(CPC)put forward the strategy of innovation-driven development,and the 19th national congress of the communist party of China(CPC)proposed that innovation is the primary driving force for development and accelerating the building of an innovative country.General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed on many occasions that we should pay more attention to innovation-driven development,and improve regional innovation ability,and increase the contribution of factor productivity to economic growth by promoting scientific and technological progress,which realizes high-quality development.At present,promoting the quality of economic growth through innovation has become the consensus of the whole society.Many scholars have studied this problem from different perspectives and drawn many conclusions for reference.However,there are also some problems,especially,the empirical research results are quite different.The reasons are as follows:first of all,different scholars have great different understandings on the connotation of innovation ability,which directly leads to their different evaluation methods and indicator selection of innovation ability.Therefore empirical research results are also quite different.Second,different scholars also have great different understandings on the connotation of the quality of economic growth,which directly leads to the defects of their evaluation methods and indicator selection on the quality of economic growth.Third,some scholars lack a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of innovation-driven to the transmission path of economic growth quality,which leads to the lack of pertinence of policy Suggestions in some papers on how to improve regional innovation ability and how to improve the quality of economic growth by improving regional innovation ability.In view of this,this paper intends to make a systematic investigation under the background of China’s economy transforming from high-speed growth to high-quality development,which is on the connotation and evaluation method of the regional innovation ability,the connotation of the quality of economic growth and its correct evaluation method,and how to improve the quality of economic growth by promoting regional innovation ability,combined with the practical needs of the country to implement the innovation-driven strategy and comprehensively improve the quality of economic growth.Considering the factors of innovation may flow between regions,and technology can form in fact "spread" through the channel such as investment,trade between research subject(e.g.,company headquarters)and other main body(e.g.subsidiary),between developed regions and underdeveloped regions,thus there may be some spatial spillover effect in regional innovative ability.In this paper,the empirical research on the relationship between regional innovation ability and economic growth quality will be carried out on the basis of investigating their spatial and temporal evolution patterns.However,many existing papers directly adopt the green total factor productivity index when using a single indicator to measure the quality of regional economic growth,which we think is inappropriate.That is because this indicator can only answer the question of where green total factor productivity has risen faster or slower,but it still leads to the question of "whipping the bull".The correct approach should calculate the "contribution portion of green total factor productivity to economic growth" and then make horizontal or vertical comparisons.In other words,"the contribution portion of green total factor productivity to economic growth" is an appropriate indicator to evaluate the quality of economic growth through a single indicator.Therefore,this paper will adopt this approach when investigating the quality of economic growth in various regions.At the same time,there may be a certain spatial spillover effect in regional innovation ability,so the quality of regional economic growth based on innovation-driven may also have a certain convergence.If this convergence does exist,the gap in the quality of regional growth will narrow in the long run.But this may depend on policy,the actual spillover of regional innovation ability and many other factors.Therefore,this paper will also empirically test the convergence of green total factor productivity and the impact of regional innovation ability on it,so as to provide policy basis for better improving regional innovation ability to narrow the differences in the quality of economic growth in different regions.In addition,considering that the relationship between regional innovation ability and the quality of economic growth may be non-linear,or there may be a certain critical level,this paper will also use threshold regression model to empirically test the non-linear influence of regional innovation ability on green total factor productivity,and put forward policy suggestions based on the relevant analysis conclusions.This paper is carried out according to the above research ideas,which consists of eight chapters.The following are the main research contents and relevant conclusions.Research content Ⅰ:the measurement of China’s regional innovation ability.On the basis of fully understanding the theories related to regional innovation,36 basic indicators were selected to build a comprehensive evaluation index system for China’s regional innovation ability in the third chapter of this paper,whose purpose is to calculate the composite scores of regional innovation ability of 30 provinces in Chinese mainland(except Tibet)from 2000 to 2017.The study found that during the sample period,both local and overall regional innovation capacity of China showed a growth type evolution pattern with regional differences.The eastern region was the highest,the northeast was the second,and the central and western regions were the lowest.The score of innovation ability of Chinese provinces is similar to that of neighboring regions,showing certain spatial agglomeration characteristics.The innovation ability of Chinese provinces showed a significant feature of global spatial agglomeration,and with the passing of time,presenting a significant HH and LL spatial club phenomenon,and the low and high agglomeration areas were more than the high and low agglomeration areas.The HH cluster is mainly distributed in the eastern region,while the LL cluster is mainly distributed in the western region and the central region.Research content Ⅱ:the measurement of the quality of China’s regional economic growth.In the fourth chapter of this paper,the contribution portion of green total factor productivity to economic growth is selected as a measurement index of the quality of regional economic growth.First,the Malmquist-Luenberger index was used to calculate the green total factor productivity index of all Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2017,and it was found that from the national average level,the overall green total factor productivity of the whole country increased continuously during the sample period,and green technology progress had a greater impact on green total factor productivity than green technology efficiency.China’s green total factor productivity index has positive spatial correlation during the sample period.There is a remarkable phenomenon of HH type space club.On this basis,the contribution of green total factor productivity to economic growth is calculated and the quality of economic growth in each region is measured.It is found that the average contribution of green total factor productivity to economic growth of all provinces and regions from 2001 to 2017 is 20.8938%and that most of the provinces with higher quality economic growth are more developed provinces.The quality of economic growth fluctuates greatly in different periods.In the early period of China’s accession to the WTO(2001-2007),the contribution of green total factor productivity to economic growth was 17.0543%.During the period of economic crisis(2008-2010),it decreased to 12.9245%;during the period of economic recovery(2011-2013),it increased to 21.8015%;during the period of economic new normal,it continued to increase to 41.6005%.The driving force of China’s regional economic growth is shifting from factordriven and investment-driven to innovation-driven.That shows that although China’s economic growth is slowing,demographic dividend is gradually disappearing,and the productivity of capital is declining.However,in the economic transition period,the contribution share of China’s green total factor productivity to economic growth has been significantly improved,and the quality of economic growth has been significantly improved,by adjusting the economic structure and paying attention to resource conservation and environmental protection.The quality of China’s economic growth has positive spatial correlation during the sample period.There is a remarkable phenomenon of HH type and LL type space club.Research content Ⅲ:the influence of regional innovation ability to the convergence of green total factor productivity.In view of the significant spatial correlation of China’s regional innovation ability,regions with high innovation ability are likely to promote the technological upgrading and industrial restructuring of surrounding regions through talent flow,investment and trade.Further optimize the resource allocation,improve the green total factor productivity of the surrounding areas,narrow the differences between adjacent regions,and eventually promote the convergence of green total factor productivity.Therefore,the fifith chapter in this paper firstly examines the existence of green total factor productivity convergence,and then examines the influence of regional innovation ability on its convergence.Results showed that:(1)If the ordinary panel model is adopted without considering spatial correlation,there is no significant convergence or absolute convergence of green total factor productivity in the country and the four regions.However,there is conditional convergence in the whole country,the east and the northeast regions.After the introduction of innovation ability as explanatory variables,there is significant conditional convergence in the whole country,the east and the northeast regions.And the value of β all get small(Namely,the absolute value of β gets bigger,that is,the convergence speed is accelerated),the western region also shows significant conditional convergence,which indicates that regional innovation ability has a certain influence on the convergence of green total factor productivity.However,the regression coefficient of innovation ability itself is not significant,namely,it does not significantly promote the growth of green total factor productivity.Considering spatial correlation,the ordinary panel model is adopted.The value of β in the east,the west,and northeast regions,all continue to get small(Namely,the absolute value of β is going to get bigger,that is,the convergence speed is accelerated),and the significance in the western and northeastern regions is further enhanced.However,there is still no significant conditional convergence in the central region(although the absolute value of β gets bigger).Nationally,the rate of convergence has decreased(that is the absolute value of β gets small),but it is still significant.Therefore,in general,the four regions show more obvious convergence characteristics of "club".However,after considering the spatial correlation,although the regression coefficient of innovation ability is still positive,except the eastern region which passed the significance test of 5%,the whole country and other regions did not pass the significance test,indicating that the improvement of innovation ability of most provinces and regions in China did not significantly promote the growth of green total factor productivity.This may be related to the fact that the innovation ability of each province in China is generally low,or there is a threshold effect of innovation ability on green total factor productivity.The innovation ability of the eastern region is relatively high,and the promotion of innovation ability to green total factor productivity has been shown.However,the innovation ability of other regions is relatively low,and which leads to the promotion of innovation ability to green total factor productivity is not obvious.About the latter,further tests will be made later.Research content Ⅳ:spatial spillover effect of regional innovation ability to green total factor productivity.On the basis of the previous confirmation that the innovation ability of the eastern region significantly promoted the growth of green total factor productivity,in order to further test the spatial spillover effect of innovation ability of the eastern region to green total factor productivity,the sixth chapter in this paper used Spatial Durbin Model to identify the direct effect,indirect effect and total effect caused by the change of innovation ability of the eastern region through the method of partial differential matrix.The results shows:the direct effect,indirect effect and total effect of innovation ability are all significantly positive,and the regression coefficients are 0.1759 and 0.0692 respectively.It indicates that if a eastern province increase 1 unit innovation ability,it not only makes itsown green total factor productivity increases by 17.59%,but also makes its neighbor’s green total factor productivity increases by 6.92%.It indicates that the innovation ability of eastern provinces with higher innovation ability in China not only significantly promotes the improvement of green total factor productivity in their own provinces,but also significantly promotes the improvement of green total factor productivity in neighboring provinces through the talents flow and technology diffusion and so on.It is of great benefit to the improvement of economic growth quality.Research content V:the nonlinear effect of regional innovation ability to green total factor productivity.According to the above research on the relationship between regional innovation ability and green total factor productivity,it is found that the linear regression coefficient didn’t pass the significance test in other regions except the eastern region.We think one reason maybe is that there is a threshold effect of innovation ability to green total factor productivity,therefore the seventh chapter in this paper does further empirical test.The results shows that there is a significant single threshold effect of regional innovation ability to China’s green total factor productivity.When the score of regional innovation ability is less than the threshold value of 0.3328,that is,it is lower than the national average level of 0.33283,for every 1 increase in innovation ability,the growth rate of green total factor productivity in China increases by 2.43%.When the score of regional innovation ability is greater than the threshold value of 0.3328,for every 1 increase in innovation ability,the green total factor productivity in China increases by 4.22%,which indicates that the regional innovation ability has a greater and more significant role in promoting the green total factor productivity in China after it exceeds the threshold value.Combined with the evaluation score of regional innovation ability in the third chapter,during the sample period,the average score of innovation ability in the eastern region is 0.4942,which is above the threshold value and significantly promotes the growth of green total factor productivity.However,the average score of innovation ability in other regions is less than 0,which is lower than the national average.Therefore,the promotion of green total factor productivity is not significant,which is consistent with the conclusion in the fifth chapter.According to the above research conclusions and the influence of other control variables,the eighth chapter in this paper put forwards policy suggestions about how to elevate regional innovation ability in order to promote the quality of regional economic growth. |
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