数字经济、城市创新与区域收敛

当前,数字经济蓬勃发展,数据已成为除劳动、土地和资本等传统生产要素之外的新要素,能否依托数字经济发展赋能城市创新？文章在对数字经济的概念和内涵进行基本界定后,借助微观大数据构造的"互联网+数字经济"指数,实证分析了2015-2018年中国283个地区数字经济发展对城市创新及创新差距的影响。研究结果显示,数字经济发展能够显著促进城市创新水平提升。其中,人力资本集聚效应和创业活力增强效应是数字经济赋能城市创新的两条重要路径。在替换被解释变量、消除样本选择偏差、选择分位数回归,以及创新性地采用各地级市市长过去修习的专业作为历史工具变量检验后,这一结论依然稳健成立。进一步空间杜宾效应分析表明,数字经济发展具有显著的空间溢出效应特征,不仅促进了本地区创新水平提升,而且对相邻地区的创新产出也产生了实质性影响,有利于缩小区域创新差距,实现区域创新收敛。此外,相较于实用新型专利和外观设计专利,数字经济发展对城市发明专利的影响更显著,说明数字经济发展推动的创新是真正意义上的质量创新而非策略创新。文章为评估数字经济发展的影响效果提供了理论依据和经验支撑,也为理性看待数字经济、防止出现数字鸿沟,实现区域创新均衡发展提供了有益启示。

Digital Economy,Urban Innovation and Regional Convergence

Innovation is important strategic support for improving social productivity and overall national strength, and it is also a powerful guarantee for enhancing the core competitiveness. As the main body of regional innovation activities and the gathering place of innovation elements, cities play the role of "leader". How to find a new source of power to stimulate urban innovation has become the critical point of this research. With the rapid development of the digital economy, data has become a new element in addition to traditional elements such as labor, land, and capital. Can the digital economy empower urban innovation? This article first defines the concept and connotation of the digital economy. Second, a theoretical analysis framework for the impact of the digital economy on urban innovation has been constructed. Third, by selecting the panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2016 to 2018, and using micro-big data to construct the "Internet Plus Digital Economy" index, we empirically test the impact and mechanism of the development of the digital economy on urban innovation. The research results show that:First, on the whole, the rapid development of the digital economy can significantly promote urban innovation. After replacing the explained variables, lagging the explanatory variables by one period, eliminating sample selection bias, choosing quantile regression, and using the majors learned by the mayors of cities as the instrumental variable test, this conclusion still established steadily. Second, the agglomeration effect of human capital and the enhancement effect of entrepreneurial vitality are main channels that the development digital economy empowers urban innovation. Third, the spatial Durbin effect analysis shows that the development of the digital economy has significant spatial spillover effects, which not only promotes the improvement of the regional innovation level, but also has a substantial impact on the innovation output of neighboring cities. The digital economy relies on a powerful modern information network to break the locality of spatial distribution, strengthen economic ties between regions, and accelerate the spread and diffusion of innovation spillover effects. From the perspective of the impact of the development of the digital economy on the regional innovation gap, the spatial spillover effect generated by the development of the digital economy can narrow the innovation gap between regions. The digital economy brings "digital dividends" to regional innovation rather than "digital divides". Therefore, on the one hand, we should vigorously support the development of the digital economy, accelerate the spread and application of the digital economy in multiple fields, increase the scale of digital economy construction, use digital technology to accelerate learning by doing, and improve urban human capital. On the other hand, it is necessary to speed up investment in the construction of network technology facilities in the central and western regions, appropriately release the innovation incentive effect of the digital economy in the eastern region, and allow different production factors to play their respective roles in promoting urban innovation as much as possible, so as to avoid turning digital welfare into the digital divide.