Innovation Policies At A Provincial Level In China:a Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis

Drawing motivation from the often accentuated differences in the level of innovativeness across developed economies and the copious literary production concerning the identification of their drivers at a country level, this thesis attempts to switch the attention of the research to an equally important framework of analysis, the regional level. The reason is that a regional framework within a nation may be helpful to individuate the drivers of innovativeness (approximated by the number of locally granted patents) relaxing some otherwise inevitable assumptions that take into account legal and social differences across countries. This thesis focuses on31Chinese provinces as object of analysis. The intention to identify the stimulators of innovativeness arises from the great economic disparity characterizing Chinese provinces, largely discussed in recent decades. Therefore, the analysis focuses on the level of innovation, given the proven positive relation between innovation and economic growth.By means of cross-section time series analysis over fifteen years, this thesis show that trade related variables have more impact on the level of innovativeness as compared to educational variables and that there exists a negative correlation with the level of independence from the central Government.