Transportation Infrastructure Construction with Chinese Characteristics: High-Speed Railway, Knowledge Spillover, and Coordinated Development of Regional Innovation
SONG Min, LU Jieyi, ZHAO Jing, LI Xuchao
School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University; Institute of Central China Development, Wuhan University; College of Business, City University of Hong Kong
Summary:
The report of 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized the importance of“accelerating the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy and attaining high-level self-reliance in science and technology”. Innovation is the primary driving force for development and a key element for the progress of enterprises and countries. However, to implement innovation-driven development, it is necessary not only to enhance the overall level of innovation but also to address the structural challenges in innovation, one of which is the “innovation gap” among regions. There is a large gap in the number of patent applications and patent grants between the eastern and central-western regions in China. Additionally, the Gini coefficient of patent applications and patent grants among cities is relatively high. The inter-regional “innovation gap” hinders the improvement of the overall innovation level in several ways. On the one hand, cities with high levels of innovation tend to attract and retain more high-quality talents, leading to talent outflow from cities with low levels of innovation, exacerbating the “innovation gap” among regions. On the other hand, innovation often requires cross-institutional and cross-regional collaboration and synergy. When there is a significant gap in innovation, cities with low levels of innovation may not be able to establish good innovation interaction relationships with cities of high levels of innovation. Therefore, it is necessary to narrow the “innovation gap” among cities and promote the effective allocation of innovation resources. Knowledge spillovers are beneficial for low-level innovation regions to learn and adapt advanced technologies from high-level innovation regions, thereby enhancing their own innovation capabilities and reducing the “innovation gap” among regions. However, knowledge spillovers exhibit a high degree of localization, leading to barriers in cross-regional knowledge diffusion. High-speed railway plays a crucial role in facilitating the movement of talents, capital, and goods among regions, thereby reducing information search costs and promoting face-to-face communication. It provides convenient conditions for overcoming barriers in cross-regional knowledge spillovers, thus helping to narrow the “innovation gap” among regions. This study employs a quasi-natural experiment of high-speed railway connectivity among cities and the patent data from the China National Intellectual Property Administration. The study reveals the following findings. Firstly, after the high-speed railway connection, the number of mutual patent citations between the two cities significantly increases by 5.24%, indicating that high-speed railway promotes knowledge spillovers among cities. Parallel trend test, placebo test, and instrumental variable regression confirm the robustness of the results. Secondly, the promoting effect of high-speed railway is more pronounced among cities with shared dialects, more inter-provincial chambers of commerce, and a higher level of mutual trust. Additionally, the study finds that high-speed railway connectivity facilitates cross-city subsidiary investment, supplier selection, inventor mobility, patent transfers, and patent collaborations. Thirdly, the high-speed railway connection between the two cities narrows the “innovation gap” among cities and significantly enhances the overall innovation capabilities of both cities. Finally, high-speed railway construction improves the innovation level of non-central cities and promotes inventor mobility and patent transfers from central cities to non-central cities, demonstrating a “diffusion effect”. Moreover, knowledge spillovers are bidirectional, as non-central cities also generate knowledge spillovers to central cities, thereby facilitating the coordinated development of innovation among cities. This study has several contributions. Firstly, existing research mainly focuses on the single-point effects and locality effects of high-speed railway opening in individual cities, with limited exploration on the impact of high-speed railway on the point-to-point relationships among cities. Building upon existing research, this study investigates the influence of high-speed railway connectivity on knowledge spillovers by constructing panel data for city pairs. It further focuses on the interaction and coordination among cities at the innovation level, providing a networked and global perspective. Secondly, this study finds that the innovation radiation effect of central cities, after being connected by high-speed railway, contributes to improving the innovation level of non-central cities. Simultaneously, it promotes inventor mobility and patent transfers from central cities to non-central cities, demonstrating a “diffusion effect”. This provides certain insights into how transportation infrastructure development affects the spatial distribution of innovation resources. Thirdly, this study offers a new perspective on understanding the coordinated development of regional innovation through two-way knowledge spillovers. The knowledge spillovers brought about by high-speed railway are bidirectional, as high-level innovation cities also cite patents from low-level innovation cities. Two-way knowledge spillovers help to expand the common knowledge stock, narrow the regional “innovation gap”, and promote regional coordinated development. This study also provides some policy implications for achieving coordinated regional innovation development. Firstly, it is important to utilize the technological comparative advantages of low-innovation level regions, achieve complementary regional innovation advantages, and promote two-way knowledge spillovers among cities. Secondly, policy support should be provided to enhance the “diffusion effect” of high-speed railway on innovation. This can be achieved by facilitating the flow of innovation resources among regions, thereby improving regional collaborative innovation capacity and overall innovation level. Thirdly, it is crucial to improve the spatial planning of high-speed rail, with a focus on the layout of high-speed railway lines in the central-western regions of China. Strengthening innovation cooperation and economic interactions between the eastern region and the central-western regions can stimulate economic development in the central-western regions.
宋敏, 卢洁宜, 赵婧, 李旭超. 中国特色交通基础设施建设:高铁、知识溢出与区域创新协调发展[J]. 金融研究, 2024, 527(5): 95-113.
SONG Min, LU Jieyi, ZHAO Jing, LI Xuchao. Transportation Infrastructure Construction with Chinese Characteristics: High-Speed Railway, Knowledge Spillover, and Coordinated Development of Regional Innovation. Journal of Financial Research, 2024, 527(5): 95-113.
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