| Regional innovation depends not only on local R&D and human capital investment,but also affected by spatial spillovers from other regions.As a matter of fact,there are little regions depend only on local innovation investment because of the strong spatial aggregation of the innovation resources and elements.On account of the insufficiency of innovation investment,it would be a good choice for many regions to take advantage of spatial spillovers to promote the development of local innovation.Innovation spatial spillovers is closely related to the proximity between different regions.Proximity is the key factor of regional innovation spillover.At first,it was generally believed that there was the significant association between geographical proximity and innovation spatial spillovers.The closer the geographical distance between the regions,the greater the possibility of innovation spatial spillovers.But the subsequent studies have claimed that geographical proximity per se is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for spatial spillovers.Other proximity dimensions,such as the technological,transportation,organizational and social ones,also play an important role in promoting regional innovation spatial spillovers.Therefore,it has become a new research tendency to analyze and compare the effect of spatial spillovers on regional innovation from the perspective of various proximity dimensions.Based on the existing studies,this paper tries to develop the proximity measurements and examine in detail different kinds of proximity not only the usual geographical proximity but also the technological and transportation ones.In particular,this paper combine the standard geographical proximity with other two dimensions to assess whether two or more proximity dimensions combinations are of important in promoting spatial spillovers.This paper analyze the effects of spatial spillovers on regional innovative capacity of 30 provinces in mainland China(except for Tibet)through the year 1998-2014 by using the spatial autoregressive model.Because of the different proximity dimensions,the effects of spatial spillovers vary.We can use different kinds of proximity to promote spatial spillovers and then the regional innovation.This paper uses patents as the explained variable to represent the regional innovation output,and uses R&D expenditures and human capital as the explanatory variables to represent the regional innovation input.Besides R&D expenditures and human capital and other traditional factors that influence regional innovation,the empirical results show that spatial spillovers also has a notable influence on promoting regional innovation.Every proximity plays a significant role in promoting spatial spillovers.Among the three single proximity dimensions,transportation proximity outperforms the rest,followed by the geographical one,and the least important role is played by technological proximity.While considering the comprehensive effects of the proximity combinations,the geographical-transportation proximity outperforms the rest.Comparing the effects of each proximity and the combinations of them,significant compromises are to be found.It is clearly that proximity combinations have less impact on spatial spillovers than single proximity.As a result,the policy implication is that all provinces in China should not only increase the innovation investment but also pay full attention to enhance regional innovation by taking advantage of spatial spillovers when implement the strategy of innovation-driven development.For central government,how to promoting and using regional spatial spillovers should be taken into serious consideration.For the regions,learning to absorb spatial spillovers from all over the country as well as increasing regional innovation investment is of great significance.Furthermore,according to the different dimensions of proximity,all provinces in China can formulate specific innovation policies to better absorb spatial spillovers from other regions. |
PDF Full Text Request