Research On The Causes And Impacts Of China's Regional Technological Specialization

The important role of technological innovation in economic and social development has been widely accepted,so that innovation has been placed at the core place of the overall development of the country.However,because various regions of China differ in the natural resources,social and economic development,the disparity of regional innovation ability is very significant.Understanding the distribution of regional innovation activities in China,identifying the technical advantages and development trend of each region,clarifying the relationships between technological development and economic growth are of great importance for implementing the innovation-driven development strategy.This dissertation takes regional technology specialization in China as the research subject,analyzes the distribution characteristics and internal mechanism of various innovation activities in China according to the basic idea of “theoretical basis-phenomenon description-model discussion-empirical analysis”,and discusses the problem of innovation driving growth from the new angle of technological innovation structure.This dissertation focuses on the influence of regional technological structure and specialization of specific technical fields on the economic growth of different kinds of regions,expanding the theory of technological specialization while providing empirical evidence of the China regions,in order to provide suggestions for the collaborative development of innovation in various regions.First of all,this dissertation defines the concept of “regional technological specialization”,setting the research category as the specialization degree of the region in the technical field and the specialized advantage of the region in the specific technical field.At the same time,the dissertation constructs the theoretical framework for the proposition of “regional technological specialization”.Integrating the theories of Industrial Agglomeration,Regional Specialization,Technological Progress and Knowledge Spillover,the dissertation analyzes the formation of regional technological specialization according to the idea of “industrial agglomeration-technological innovation and diffusion-innovation division” based on the New Economic Geography,and analyzes the influence of technological specialization on economic growth from two aspects of technological innovation and specialization based on the New Growth Theory.Secondly,using the data of Invention patent authorization and industry value added,this dissertation reveals the distribution of technological innovation in China from 2000 to 2017 by calculating the index of Gini coefficient,Theil index and Hefendal index.The dissertation emphatically analyzes the regional differences and change rules of the degree of specialization between the technical fields and the specialization mode of specific fields.It is found that the agglomeration characteristics and hierarchical characteristics of regional technological innovation activities in China are obvious,the innovation agglomeration of the region is stronger than the economic agglomeration,and the degree of technological specialization within the region is stronger than that of industrial specialization.In high-level areas,their innovation activities tend to be spreaded across most fields of technology,and low-level areas tend to limit innovation activities to fewer fields of technology.Only a few regions can specialized in the fields of high-tech and high-opportunity technology,and most regions are specialized in the technical fields corresponding to their own dominant industries.Thirdly,this dissertation constructs the knowledge agglomeration model with the New Economic Geography as the theoretical framework,takes the heterogeneous intellectual spatial distribution as the research object,probes into the formation mechanism of knowledge agglomeration,and the related questions about the economic growth and regional welfare,in order to analyze the specialized agglomeration and diversification agglomeration of technological innovation.At the same time,in the case of Guangdong Province,this dissertation analyzes Guangdong province's innovation agglomeration phenomenon,combining theory and reality.This study found that the evenly distributed intellectuals will gather in one area under the action of asymmetric shock.No matter the heterogeneity of intellectuals is too strong or too weak,knowledge agglomeration is hard to form for lacking cooperation motivation,symmetrical distribution of intellectuals is stable.When heterogeneity in a certain range,intellectuals will be all gathered to form the “center-peripheral” spatial structure of the knowledge production,and with the increase of knowledge diffusion degree and free trade degree to form a diversified agglomeration or specialization agglomeration.The economic growth rate of intellectuals gathering is greater than that of intellectuals symmetrically distributing,and it will improve the welfare level of the central region.Increasing the trade freedom and knowledge diffusion intensity will narrow the welfare difference between the center and the periphery.Fourth,this dissertation applies the Generalized Method of Moment(GMM)to do the empirical analysis.Using the patent data and the economic data of 30 regions in China between 2000 and 2017,this dissertation examines the influence of the degree of technological specialization on the economic growth of areas with different innovation ability on the aspect of the concentration and difference of the technical structure,and analyzes the relationship between specialized advantages and economic growth of different regions in specific categories of technical fields.The study found that,increasing specialization is not conducive to economic growth in areas with high innovation capacity,but contributed to economic growth in areas with medium-innovation capacity and low-innovation capacity.For different regions,there is a different U-shaped nonlinear relationship between specialization and economic growth in specific technical fields.Therefore,the regions with low innovation ability should not emulate the regions with high innovation ability when choosing the key fields of innovation development,but they should choose the differentiated development path based on their own advantages.Finally,this dissertation discusses the effect and path of different types of technical specialization on economic growth.Combining the previous studies and actual situation in China,this dissertation constructs two kinds of technological specialization indexes in different fields,designs the spatial econometric model with interactive items and intermediary effect model,and analyzes the mechanism and spillover effect of different types of technological specialization on economic growth.The results show that the effect of specialization in different fields on economic growth will be affected by the level of technological innovation ability: under the condition of certain innovation ability,the positive effect on the economy will be weakened by specialized in the technical field corresponding to the dominant industries,while the positive effect on the economy by specialized in the technical field with high-tech opportunities will be more effective.The different results are related to the different paths of the impact of the two types of technical fields on the economy.In addition,specializing in the field of high-opportunity technology has a positive spatial spillover effect.