The Territorial Dynamics of Innovation in China

摘要

Is innovative activity a random walk over geographical space? The purpose of this paper is to show that the territorial dynamics of innovation in China are far from spatial randomness. Using three measures of spatial statistics and province-level data on R&D personnel, R&D expenditure and patents granted, we found that, for R&D activity in China, its degree of spatial agglomeration increases remarkably while its geographic range shrinks and its center of gravity moves eastward between 2000 and 2005. In addition, R&D activity is primarily a regional phenomenon in China. The east has advantage in innovative capacity over the west, and the south and north narrow the gap in innovative efficiency between 2000 and 2005. Our results provide strong evidence that agglomeration economies and geography are the driving force behind the intensification and regionaliza-tion of innovation in China.