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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the innovation ability of universities (IAU) on the efficiency of University–Industry knowledge flow and investigate whether the level of provincial innovative agglomeration (PIA) moderates the relationship between IAU and the efficiency of the University–Industry knowledge flow.

This study uses the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis model to measure knowledge research efficiency (KRE) and knowledge transformation efficiency (KTE) and then studies the influencing mechanism of the two kinds of efficiency using the spatial Tobit model with panel data from 2008 to 2017.

The results show that the overall KRE in Chinese universities is higher than the KTE. IAU has a significantly positive impact on KRE and KTE. PIA has a significantly inverted U-shaped influence on KRE and KTE and positively moderates the promoting effect of IAU on KRE and KTE.

Due to the limitations of the data, this paper only selects several secondary indicators to measure KRE and KTE with reference to previous studies.

This study enriches the future research of University–Industry cooperation and knowledge flow and it is conducive to promoting the efficiency of University–Industry knowledge research and transformation from the perspective of universities, enterprises and local governments.

This study proposes the concept of University–Industry knowledge flow and divides the knowledge flow into the knowledge research stage and the knowledge transformation stage based on the knowledge supply chain theory. Moreover, the paper expands the theoretical framework of the impact of IAU on the efficiency of University–Industry knowledge flow and provides findings on the moderating effect of PIA.

A city is a spatial carrier of innovation activities. Improving the level of urban innovation can play a significant supporting role in building an innovative country. China began to implement the innovative city pilot policy in 2008 and continued to expand the policy into more areas for exploring the path of innovative urban development with Chinese characteristics and improving urban innovation.

Based on mechanism analysis, this paper used the panel data of 269 cities from 2003 to 2016 to empirically test the effect of the pilot policy on the level of urban innovation by using different methods, such as the difference-in-differences model.

The results show that the innovative city pilot policy significantly improves the level of urban innovation. However, according to the findings of the heterogeneity analysis, the effect of the pilot policy on improving the innovation level in direct-controlled municipalities, provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities is weaker than that in ordinary cities, and the effect of the pilot policy on improving the innovation level in cities with a higher quality of science and education resources is weaker than that in cities with lower quality of science and education resources.

Moreover, as the level of urban innovation increases, the effect of the pilot policy on improving the level of urban innovation is an asymmetric inverted V shape, which means the effect is first strengthened and then weakened. The research also finds that the locational heterogeneity of the pilot policy for improving the level of urban innovation is not notable. In addition, the innovative city pilot policy can strengthen the government's strategic guidance, promote the concentration of talent, incentivize corporate investment and optimize the innovation environment, having a positive impact on urban innovation. Moreover, the effect of concentration of talent and the effect of corporate investment incentive are the important reasons for the pilot policy to promote the improvement of the level of urban innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine effects of regional economic integration on the concentration of manufacturing firms in provinces of Thailand on the border with Cambodia. It aims to clarify the interactions between dispersion and agglomeration forces within a firm’s location choice in the presence of economic integration and thereby to explain the feasibility of the border SEZs.

The theory of industrial clustering and New Economic Geography provides a theoretical framework to understand the locations of economic activities when regional economies are integrated. This paper employs provincial level data to calculate industry location quotients across a 10-year period from 2007 to 2017 in central Thailand and uses firm-level data from industrial censuses in 2006 and 2011 to estimate logit models for two border provinces with Cambodia and three eastern seaboard provinces. Two base models and extended models are tested to explain the persistent agglomeration of Thai firms in each manufacturing industry.

The authors found a positive correlation between the agglomeration level in 2006 and the choice of firms toward the border provinces in 2011. The disaggregated analysis shows that depending on the initial level of concentration in each industry, there can be agglomeration or dispersion effects. The advantage of low trade costs and labor costs of unskilled migrant workers are not significant factors attracting firms to the border. Firms in industries with increasing returns are more likely to stay in the hub.

The disaggregated analysis by industry provides very important implications for SEZ policy interventions. The important role of agglomeration economies limits the extent to which such policies can be successful. It would be an enormous challenge for policy makers to initiate forces which are strong enough to induce firms to relocate away from areas with high agglomerations. Policy interventions with attractive incentives should be very selective to industries already have a certain degree of concentration in the provinces so as to reinforce the agglomeration effects.

The research extends the empirical literature on SEZs by offering a unique case study of an emerging economy with a strong market foundation rather than a transitional or developed economy. It is also different from other research on SEZs when taking into account the effects of regional integration on border SEZ formation and firms’ location choices. In addition, this study employs firm-level data rather than provincial data to bring empirical insights and fill in the knowledge gap on agglomeration economies in Thailand with the presence of regional economic integration.

The purpose of this paper is to indicate trade characteristics of Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in China and examine the dynamic interaction between FDI inflows and China’s international trade through empirical analysis.

At first, this paper builds the probability distribution model (Poisson and negative binomial (NB)) to capture the characteristics of spatial distribution of all kinds of FDI firms in Chinese cities and provinces based on count data, so as to indicate the potentials for further introducing FDI inflows in China; Second, this paper investigates the effects of trade on FDI firms inflows based on probability regress model (Binary Logit, Tobit, NB, Poisson, zero inflated negative binomial) and shows how international trade accelerates the different kinds of FDI firms to agglomerate in Eastern, Middle and Western region by the endowments of factors; third, this paper empirically examines the magnitude and characteristics of trade effects generated by FDI inflows by building dynamic panel model based on continuous data.

First, statistical tests of probability distribution model based on count data show that there are characteristics of spatial agglomeration of FDI firms such as manufacture firm, R & D firm, managing and marketing firm and total sectors, which obey NB distribution as whole; Second, this study indicate that FDI inflows have strong positive effects on the international trade in China’s provinces and on China’s regional trade, and that most of foreign firms in China are export oriented being strongly characterized as labor-intensive industries, especially, contributions of FDI to imports are greater than the contributions of FDI to exports in China’s Middle and Western trade, and the growth of FDI trade in China’s trade volume has been strong over the past years; third, the empirical results of models based on count data and continuous data indicate that FDI inflows have significantly positive relationship with international trade, that is, the relationship between FDI and international trade in the case of China is the characteristics with complement and imports substituting relationship.

Because of mixed data set for FDI inflows of processing and assembling trade and production-oriented FDI, efficiency-seeking and knowledge or technology – intensive FDI inflows in the past 36 years, the paper only investigate characteristics of FDI inflows in China before the turning point of financial crisis, but it is important for capturing the whole picture of trade characteristics of FDI inflows in China.

The derived quantitative results imply that there are still greater potentials for further introducing FDI inflows in China, and decision-maker should make policy of introducing FDI inflows which are favorable to supporting innovative activities and economic agglomeration, and preferably encourage efficiency-seeking and export-oriented FDI inflows so as enhance quality and efficiency of economic growth, which are also helpful to accelerate upgrade of Chinese industry and gradually shorten gap of growth among Eastern, Middle and Western region.

FDI inflows in China not only stimulate the remarkable growth of bilateral trade between host country and home country, but also promote the growth of international trade between China and the rest of the world. Thus, policies of bilateral or multilateral free-trade and investment area should be encouraged, which will be also favorable to promote the growth and welfare in all the regions.

This paper demonstrates that spatial distributions of FDI firms in Chinese cities and provinces obey NB probability distribution pattern, and puts forward the methodology of model based on count data and continuous data. Besides, this paper quantitatively indicates trade characteristics of FDI inflows in China as well as the dynamic interaction between FDI inflows and China’s international trade.

Collaboration as a means to enabling and nourishing innovation is an important theme in the extant literature, which posits that face-to-face interactions lubricate the knowledge flow between actors, and that clusters of complementary knowledge assets provide the necessary infrastructure for this process. What happens to firms that are located outside of urban agglomerations or in peripheral regions? Are they less innovative, or can information and communication technologies (ICT) serve as a proxy for face-to-face collaboration? Theory is polarized in terms of the role that ICT may play in collaborative transactions. For example, network theory explains that weak ties are important in terms of refreshing a firm's innovation capacity by forcing it to include ideas from the periphery. Others argue that ICT cannot supplant face-to-face interaction since it is not an efficient medium for transferring tacit knowledge. This chapter uses data from the Statistics Canada 2003 Survey of Innovation to investigate empirically the relationship between firm location, innovativeness, and the extent of local and more distant collaboration.

The implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy is of practical significance for improving the quality and efficiency of economic growth and accelerating the transformation of economic development mode. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of innovation-driven strategies on marine industry agglomeration and industrial transformation.

In traditional grey correlation analysis, when the positive and negative areas cancel each other out during the integration process, the calculation result of the correlation degree is often inconsistent with the qualitative analysis. For this reason, from the perspective of curve similarity, this paper constructs two response curves through the relative change area of the two curves and the relative area change ratio of similar degree, thus constructing an improved grey relational model.

The authors find that the innovation investment has a better correlation with marine industrial agglomeration. It also found that Guangdong Province has the highest degree of correlation between innovation indicators and marine industrial agglomeration. Much beyond the authors’ expectation, in the areas where marine industrial agglomeration is high, the synergistic effect is not obvious by using the location entropy method.

The improved grey correlation analysis method can effectively overcome the phenomenon that the positive and negative areas cancel each other in the integration process of the original algorithm, and it can also effectively measure the negative correlation between variables. This paper explores the impact of innovation drive on the agglomeration of marine industries, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of marine economy.

In light of the shift in focus from information communication technology (ICT) access (access divide) and skills (skills divide) to the tangible impacts of ICT use (impact divide), a growing number of scholars have called for further investigation into the inter-territorial and multi-dimensional aspects of the digital divide in China. This study aims to address these gaps by examining the disparities across 31 provinces, particularly emphasizing the transition from the traditional access and skills divides to the impact divide.

Multivariate regression analysis extensively investigates the transition from the access and skills divides to the impact divide across 31 provinces. Additionally, ArcGIS software is used to analyze spatial agglomeration and the auto-correlation (Moran-i) and predict mapping patterns in the data corresponding to all three levels of the digital divide.

According to the study's findings, poverty is a significant factor in the digital divide between different regions in China. The research shows that provinces with advanced administrative systems, such as Guangdong, Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Shandon and Zhejiang, have high scores on the digital development index (DDI). However, regions with poverty-ridden and rural areas, primarily located in southwest, central and western China, tend to have lower DDI scores.

This study offers a novel contribution to the literature by presenting an innovative conceptual framework that explores the impact divide within China's provinces. The authors also address this lacuna in the literature by developing and testing two dimensions to examine the relationships statistically under a wide range of socioeconomic and ICT indicators.

Because of the rapid progress of global value chains (GVCs), it is worthwhile to study their impact on innovation. This study aims to explore the impact of GVC position of high-tech industries in the developing-country context of China on innovation performance; it also aims to explore the moderating effects of industrial agglomeration (specialization agglomeration and diversification agglomeration) on the relationship between GVC position and innovation performance.

The study is based on data gathered on Chinese high-tech industries in 30 provinces from the 2005–2015 period. The econometric analysis relies on merged data from the China Premium Database and the Trade in Value Added 2018 Database.

The regression results show that GVC position of China’s high-tech industries significantly affects their innovation performance, and both specialization agglomeration and diversification agglomeration significantly enhance the positive relationship between GVC position and innovation performance of China’s high-tech industries. After dividing the country into coastal and inland regions, new findings appear.

This study highlights the importance of GVC position and its effect on innovation performance of China’s high-tech industries. It contributes to the literature on the relationship between GVCs and innovation by elaborating on the moderating effects of industrial agglomeration on this relationship.

By observing facts of the “reversal of agglomeration” of Chinese enterprises during the period of rapid Internet development and using a new economic geography model combined with the data of the real estate sector, this paper deduces the influence of the “reshaping mechanisms” of the Internet on China's economic geography based on the “gravitation mechanism” of the Internet that affects the enterprises and the “amplification mechanism” of the Internet that amplifies the dispersion force of house prices.

In the empirical aspect, the dynamic spatial panel data model is used to test the micromechanisms of the impact of the Internet on enterprises' choice of location and the instrumental variable method is used to verify the macro effects of the Internet in reshaping economic geography.

It is found that in the era of the network economy, the Internet has become a source of regional competitive advantage and is extremely attractive to enterprises. The rapidly rising house price has greatly increased the congestion cost and has become the force behind the dispersion of enterprises. China's infrastructure miracle has closed the access gap which gives full play to network externalities and promotes the movement of enterprises from areas with high house prices to areas with low house prices.

The Internet is amplifying the dispersion force of congestion costs manifested as house prices and is reshaping China's economic geography. This paper further proposes policy suggestions such as taking the Internet economy as the new momentum of China's economic development and implementing the strategy of regional coordinated development.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the paradox between diversification and specialization from a dynamic perspective. More precisely, this paper will analyze the impact of diversification and specialization as well as their interaction on regional innovation in different development stages.

Based on the principles of new economic geography and innovation geography, data from 30 provinces from 2001 to 2017 was used to explore the relationship. Least squares regressions with fix effect were used to examine the hypotheses.

The results show that both diversification and specialization have a significant and positive impact on regional innovation. The interaction of diversification and specialization also significantly and positively impacts regional innovation. The effect of industrial agglomeration is heterogeneity under different development stages.

This paper verifies the positive role of diversification and specialization and their interaction in promoting regional innovation. The impact of industrial agglomeration on innovation is dynamic and changes with the regional development process. Emerging economies should make appropriate industrial agglomeration strategies according to their development stages.

This paper introduces diversification, specialization and their interaction into the research framework at the same time to analyze their impact on innovation performance which deepened the research of industrial agglomeration. Taking China as an example, this paper also examines the impact of industrial agglomeration on regional innovation in different development stages that expands the dynamic perspective of industrial agglomeration.