| M.E.Porter suggests that there are four levels of the development of the national competitive advantage. These are the factor-driven level, the investment-driven level, the innovation-driven level and the wealth-driven one. For a long time, China’s rapid economic development mainly due to the demographic bonus caused by cheap labor force as well as land bonus during the urbanization which is called factor-driven, and positive fiscal policy as well as moderately loose monetary policy which is called investment-driven. However, as the elemental structure and the economic environment both change,"factor-driven" or "investment-driven" are no longer meet the needs of current economic development. The advantages of original demographic bonus and land bonus have been weakened gradually. That means "factor-driven" is unsustainable. Large amount of investment and fiscal stimulus has caused hangovers. That means the price for "investment-driven" is too high. The low-cost industrialization mode, which is over-relied on "factor-driven" and "investment-driven", makes the country’s economic development big but not strong. The core technology is controlled by other countries. In the future, China should speed up the transformation of economic development mode, from the "factor-driven" and "investment-driven" level to the "innovation-driven" one. In order to implement the innovation-driven strategy, there’s an urgent need to emphasize the importance of regional innovation and to strengthen the construction of regional innovation systems, which will enhance the regional innovation capacity and achieve a sustainable development of regional economy.Studies show that innovation activities in the geographical space present the accumulation of highly non-equilibrium state. Regional innovation systems are the effective carrier suitable for innovative agglomeration. However, at the regional level, industrial development also has a spatial agglomeration characteristic. Whether the industrial agglomeration is the main cause of the innovation agglomeration? Whether the industrial agglomeration has the potential impact on regional innovation systems? How the industrial agglomeration affects the formation and development of regional innovation systems? Clarifying these problems helps us to enhance the development of regional innovation systems, promote regional innovation and implement the innovation-driven strategy. Therefore, this dissertation studies the impacts of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation systems from the perspective of the industrial agglomeration evolution. And in order to provide references to promote China’s industrial clusters upgrading and to strengthen regional innovation systems construction, the dissertation uses empirical data of the developed region to do an empirical test to industrial agglomeration stages and the impacts of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation systems.Researches of industrial agglomeration and regional innovation systems, which have so many classical theories and literatures, are relatively mature. However, the combination researches of both are few. As preliminary judging, the relationship between industrial agglomeration and regional innovation systems is not accidental. These two are actually showing a spiraling positive interaction for mutual promotion and common development trend. Specifically, industrial agglomeration is the fundamental driving force of the development of regional innovation systems, while regional innovation systems promote industrial agglomeration.Industrial agglomeration is a dynamic process, which has different impacts on regional innovation systems at different development stages. For the further analysis of the dynamic influences of industrial agglomeration evolution on regional innovation systems, it is necessary to study the specific process of industrial agglomeration evolution. Two dynamic-factors alternation exist in the process of industrial agglomeration evolution. That is regional comparative advantages change to external economic advantages, again to the advantages of cluster innovation. Based on leading dynamic factors, this dissertation divides the process of industrial agglomeration evolution into three stages-generated stage, enhanced stage, adjusted stage.The study finds that industrial agglomeration evolution has a certain law of development. From the view of industrial agglomeration evolution stages:The first stage is characterized by the local primary elements agglomeration. The second stage is characterized by a local networking and external expansion. The third stage is characterized by gathering elements replacement and cluster network reconfiguration, or gathering elements disappearance and cluster network decomposition. This is because as developing to a certain level, industrial agglomeration will produce two different trends, deepen or weaken, thus it shows the relatively different forms of development. From the view of industrial agglomeration evolution trends:For main bodies, the quantity is from less to more, the scale is from small to large, and the structure is from single to multiple. For resources, the quantity is from less to more, the level is from low to high, and the productiveness is from low to high. For cluster network, the scale is from small to large, the relationship is from weak to strong, and the structure is from simple to complex.Research of the impact mechanism of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation systems is the theoretical basis to analyze how industrial agglomeration evolution influences regional innovation systems. There are three main mechanisms: competition and cooperation mechanisms, knowledge spillover mechanism and collective learning mechanisms. First, industrial agglomeration can expand the scale of competition and cooperation, shorten the distance of competition and cooperation, improve the level of competition and cooperation, and broaden channels of competition and cooperation. Second, industrial agglomeration can reduce the proprietary nature of knowledge, active knowledge spillovers source, and extend knowledge spillover channels. Third, industrial agglomeration can create favorable conditions for learning, promote collective learning process, and form force of collective learning.Studies have shown that at the different stages of industrial agglomeration evolution, influence of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation systems is obviously different. And this dynamic influence is reflected in a corresponding change on the impact mechanism. Based on the changes of scope and extent of the impact mechanism, we can summarize the dynamic influence as:at the generated stage, industrial agglomeration will promote regional innovation systems form; at the enhanced stage, industrial agglomeration will promote regional innovation systems strengthen; at the adjusted stage, industrial agglomeration will promote regional innovation systems upgrade (or cause degradation of regional innovation systems). This dissertation gives a clear picture of the dynamic influence of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation systems. However, these basic judgments and viewpoints are based on the results of qualitative analysis. Whether are they the true reflection of the development of industrial agglomeration and regional innovation systems? It needs further empirical testing. Because of great regional differences, we choose Shanghai as a suitable region of the empirical study. Shanghai has experienced the first and second stage of industrial agglomeration evolution and has been at the third stage. Based on the data of industry cluster in Shanghai from the year1995to2012, we give appropriate weight to industrial agglomeration index by using the entropy method in order to measure industrial agglomeration composite index and its growth rate. Then we divide the stages of industrial agglomeration evolution in Shanghai to justify the rationality of three-stage theory of industrial agglomeration evolution. The study concluded that Shanghai has experienced the generated stage from1995to1999, the enhanced stage from2000to2007, the adjusted stage from2008to2012.In this dissertation, we use empirical data of regional innovation systems’ indicators in Shanghai during the same period to analysis trends and stages of the development of regional innovation systems, which is compared with the stages of industrial agglomeration evolution. Then we focus on the causality and correlation between industrial agglomeration and regional innovation systems to judge the impacts of the former on the latter. Comparative analysis showed that the stages of industrial agglomeration evolution and the stages of regional innovation systems’ development are substantially the same in the time dimension, and that their fluctuation are basically the same. Granger causality test showed that industrial agglomeration evolution is a reason of the development of regional innovation systems. Correlation analysis showed that there is a significant positive correlation between industrial agglomeration and regional innovation systems. It results that along with the gradual evolution of industrial agglomeration, it promotes the development of regional innovation systems. And the promotion of industrial agglomeration evolution to regional innovation systems has showed significant stage characteristics. Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis, this dissertation proposes policy proposals of strengthening the construction of regional innovation systems relying on industrial agglomeration. The study finds that in the course of industrial agglomeration evolution influencing regional innovation systems, there may be barriers in two aspects:First, the evolution of industrial agglomeration itself is blocked. Second, the transmission mechanism of industrial agglomeration influencing regional innovation systems gets problems. This dissertation argues that in order to make scientific and rational policies and measures, it should start with the basic point that strengthening the promotion of industrial agglomeration to regional innovation systems. Then based on the guarantee of the healthy development of industrial agglomeration, it should remove various obstacles faced by the impact mechanism and amplify beneficial effects as well as reduce negative effects. |
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