| Since entering the "new normal",a series of profound changes have taken place in China’s economy and society.The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "China’s economy has shifted from the phase of rapid growth to the phase of high-quality development",and "the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved into the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life".Innovation is the primary driving force for high-quality development,and entrepreneurship is an extension of innovation.In particular,high-tech and highinnovative entrepreneurship not only relies on innovation,but also contributes to innovation,so innovation and entrepreneurship plays a key role in boosting highquality development.The transformation of the principal social contradiction shows that people’s requirements for the quality of life are increasingly higher and more comprehensive,people must also have higher requirements for the livable quality of the city,especially for high-quality talents.With the continuous expansion of the scale of population mobility in China and the continuous removal of mobility barriers,cross-city population migration is becoming more and more common.Whether cities can attract or retain talents related to innovation and entrepreneurship is of great significance to accelerate its high-quality development.Based on this,this research deeply discusses the relationship between livability and urban innovation and entrepreneurship,and provides useful reference for cities to improve livable quality,improve the vitality of innovation and entrepreneurship and accelerate highquality development.This paper firstly defines the relevant concepts,and then reviews the literature related to livability and innovation and entrepreneurship,and summarizes research fields that need to be improved.Secondly,the theoretical mechanism of livability promoting urban innovation and entrepreneurship is deeply analyzed,and the moderating effect mechanism of innovation institutional environment on livability affecting urban innovation,the moderating effect mechanism of entrepreneurial market environment on livability affecting entrepreneurship,and the spatial effect mechanism of livability promoting urban innovation and entrepreneurship are discussed.Thirdly,on the basis of establishing the evaluation index of urban livability,this research analyzes the fact of the spatial and temporal differences of urban livability in China,and compares the livability of major cities in China with that of foreign cities;Then,this research empirically examines the relationship between livability and urban innovation and entrepreneurship,as well as its corresponding moderating effect and spatial effect,and empirically analyzes the effect of livability on innovation quality,green innovation,digital entrepreneurship and other more specific issues related to high-quality development,and uses microdata to test the talent migration mechanism and vitality promotion mechanism of livability affecting innovation and entrepreneurship.Finally,according to the findings,the implications of this research is obtained,and policy suggestions are given on how to accelerate the improvement of urban livable quality.The major conclusions of this research are as follows.(1)By analyzing the temporal and spatial differences of Chinese cities’ livability,and comparing the gap between Chinese cities and world-class livable cities,it is found that the livability of Chinese cities has improved rapidly,but still lags far behind that of world-class livable cities,even representative cities such as Suzhou,Shanghai and Beijing are only at the medium level in the world.The livability gap between cities is obvious,and this gap has a widening trend.The livability gap between cities is mainly caused by the gap between regions,and the gap between high livable cities in the low livable region and low livable cities in the high livable region,while the gap within regions is relatively small.Metropolitan cities have a higher level of livability than non-metropolitan cities,especially in education,infrastructure,and healthcare;The livability of eastern cities is generally higher than that of central and western cities,especially in culture and environment,education,infrastructure,etc.,and the gap between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas,and between eastern cities and central and western cities is consistent with the direction of population flow and the concentration of innovative and entrepreneurial talents.The vitality of innovation and entrepreneurship of cities is in a phase of rapid improvement,but the gap between cities is obvious.There is an obvious gap in innovation and entrepreneurship between metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan areas,between eastern cities and central and western cities,which is also consistent with the gap in livability between cities,and the gap in entrepreneurial vitality between cities has a widening trend in recent years.The government does not pay enough attention to the improvement of livability,and the resulting obstacles such as insufficient improvement of livable conditions and imbalance of urban land resources supply limit the improvement of livable quality.(2)In the empirical test of the relationship between livability and urban innovation,this research finds that urban livability has a significant positive impact on innovation,and this impact is still valid after a series of robustness tests by using the indicator of the number of patents per capita,livability ranking and the alternative empirical models,and after the treatment of endogeneity.Livability not only has a positive impact on the scale of innovation,but also has a significant role in promoting the quality of urban innovation.The robustness test using alternative indicators also shows that livability has a positive impact on the upgrading of urban innovation ranking.The heterogeneity analysis finds that the promotion effect of livability on innovation is stronger after 2012,and it is more obvious in cities in the central and eastern regions,metropolitan areas,and in cities with high levels of human capital,cities with high levels of economic development,and cities with high proportion of tertiary industry,indicating that with the development of economy and society,the promotion effect of livability on innovation will become more prominent.The positive impact of urban livability on innovation increases with the optimization of the institutional environment for innovation.In "work-adaptable" cities with better intellectual property protection institution and more conducive to innovation,"livable" factors have a greater positive impact on innovation,indicating the complementary relationship between "livable" factor and "work-adaptable" factor in promoting innovation.The innovation promotion effect of urban livability has a spatial spillover effect,which is beneficial to the innovation of neighboring cities while driving local innovation;In addition,livability also plays a positive role in urban green technology innovation and green technology selection,especially for eastern cities.(3)In the empirical test of the relationship between livability and urban entrepreneurship,this research finds that urban livability has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurship,and this effect is still valid after a series of robustness tests and the treatment of endogeneity.The promotion effect of urban livability on entrepreneurship did not appear before 2012,but after 2012,its positive impact on entrepreneurship is more obvious in cities in the central and eastern regions,metropolitan areas,cities with high human capital level,service-oriented cities,cities with high economic level,and cities with high population density,indicating that with the development of economy and society,the positive effect of livability on entrepreneurship will appear.The promoting effect of livability on urban entrepreneurship is enhanced with the optimization of market environment for entrepreneurship.In "enterprise-adaptable" cities with higher marketization level and conducive to business operation,"livable" factors have a stronger promoting effect on entrepreneurship."Livable" factor and "enterprise-adaptable" factor are mutually reinforcing and complementary in promoting entrepreneurship.Livability not only has a positive effect on local entrepreneurship,but also promotes entrepreneurship in neighboring cities,which has a spatial spillover effect.In addition,it also has a positive impact on digital entrepreneurship activities,which reflects the positive significance of livable quality in the process of accelerating technological transformation and industrial upgrading in cities.(4)In the theoretical analysis part of this research,the micro-mechanism of livability affecting urban innovation and entrepreneurship is summarized as talent migration mechanism and vitality promotion mechanism,and the two are tested respectively in this research.When testing the talent migration mechanism,this research starts from the perspective of micro individual migration decision and macro aggregate migration scale.Based on the test of micro individual migration decision,it is found that livability can significantly promote the migration of talents needed for innovation and entrepreneurship,and talents with high human capital and entrepreneurship tend to migrate to cities with higher livability,and the positive role of livability in the immigration of talents with high human capital and entrepreneurial talents is significantly greater than that of the general population.As time goes by,the positive role of livability in the immigration decision of individuals has also increased,indicating that with the development of economy and society,people pay more and more attention to the livable conditions such as medical care,education,infrastructure,consumption,etc.Based on the test of macro aggregate migration scale,it is found that livability can help cities attract more immigrants,and promote the expansion of urban immigrant population and immigrant human capital scale,and has a greater positive effect on the expansion of the immigration scale of higher human capital individuals.When testing the talent vitality promotion mechanism,this study directly uses the micro data of innovators and entrepreneurs to analyze,and finds that the improvement of livability is conducive to the increase of innovation output of inventors,and also has a positive impact on individuals’ choice of entrepreneurship,which shows that livability can enhance the vitality of individual innovation and entrepreneurship.The principal innovations of this research are as follows.Innovation in perspectives.This research emphasizes the function of the city as a living space,and examines the impact of urban livability on innovation and entrepreneurship from the perspective of livability,and summarizes its micro mechanism as talent migration mechanism and vitality promotion mechanism,and uses micro data to test the corresponding mechanism,which helps to further improve the understanding of the role of urban livability.It is conducive to further expanding the understanding of the driving path of urban innovation and entrepreneurship,and provides more explicit incentives for cities to improve livable quality.Innovation in research content.Firstly,this research focuses on the impact of livability on urban entrepreneurship.Entrepreneurship is an extension of innovation,and its core is innovation.Both of them jointly reflect the "creativity" or "innovation" of cities,therefore,this work expands the research on the economic effects of livability in existing literature.Secondly,when investigating the impact of livability on urban innovation,this research further enriched the analysis of the effect of livability on innovation,including the impact of livability on the quality of urban innovation,the effect of livability on urban green technology innovation and green technology selection.Thirdly,the heterogeneity of the impact of livability on innovation and entrepreneurship in different periods,different regions and different types of cities is investigated from multiple perspectives,which provides empirical evidence for the conclusion that the role of livability will increase with the development of economy and society,and that cities should pay more attention to livable quality in the future.Fourthly,this research focuses on the moderating effect of institutional environment on the impact of livability on innovation,the moderating effect of market environment on the impact of livability on entrepreneurship,as well as the spatial effect of livability on innovation and entrepreneurship,which also expands the research on the role of urban livability and the influencing factors of innovation and entrepreneurship.Innovation in research method.For example,the number of startups on Entrepreneurship and Innovation Map in Ctoutiao is used as one of the indicators to measure the entrepreneurial activity in a city,which better reflects the quality of entrepreneurship in city.When measuring urban "digital entrepreneurship",it identifies "digital enterprises" through the keywords related to digital economy contained in the business registration information of enterprises,and establishes the index of urban digital entrepreneurship level,which has reference value for studying the development of urban digital economy from the new perspective of enterprise entry.Innovation in viewpoint.Through theoretical analysis and empirical test of the relationship between urban livability and innovation and entrepreneurship,this research identifies several enlightening points.First,the construction of livable cities and the construction of innovative and entrepreneurial cities complement each other.Cities should take the construction of livable cities as a key task in the construction of "innovation and entrepreneurship" city,and strengthen the policy of attracting talents by improving the livable quality of cities.Second,"livable" factor and "work-adaptable" or "enterprise-adaptable" factor are mutually supportive in promoting urban development.Cities should jointly promote the improvement of both to better promote urban innovation,entrepreneurship and high-quality development.Third,with the development of economy and society,livability will be more important to urban innovation and entrepreneurship.Cities should pay more attention to the significance of urban livability. |
