互联网能成为中国区域创新效率提升的新动能吗

Can the Internet Become a New Momentum to Improve the Efficiency of Regional Innovation in China

党的十九大报告指出,创新是引领发展的第一动力,是建设现代化经济体系的战略支撑。目前,互联网已然成为推动中国社会经济创新驱动发展的强劲引擎,对区域创新效率的影响也日益引起关注,但较为系统的研究却不多见。本文首次把互联网纳入区域创新效率提升的分析框架,基于互联网普及、互联网基础设施、互联网信息资源、互联网商务应用和互联网发展环境五个维度构建了省际互联网综合发展水平指数,并利用省级面板数据就互联网这一重要的宏观新因素对区域创新效率的影响机制、效应和差异进行了稳健的实证检验。结果发现,互联网的快速发展显著推动了中国区域创新效率水平提升,完全可以成为新时代下国家提升区域创新效率的新动能,这一结论在进行一系列稳健性检验后仍然成立;互联网不仅能直接促进区域创新效率,还可通过加速人力资本积累、金融发展和产业升级间接对区域创新效率产生积极影响,但直接效应远超间接效应;互联网对区域创新效率的促进作用呈现显著的“边际效应”递增的非线性特征,表明互联网“网络效应”和“梅特卡夫法则”的“双重威力”在区域创新系统中共同显现,且在充分考虑人力资本、金融发展和产业升级的调节下,区域创新系统中互联网的动态溢出效果会进一步得到强化;中、西部区域创新系统将从互联网发展中获益更多,互联网在基础研究领域的创新溢出红利将高于应用研究。本文的研究表明,互联网发展不仅可以驱动区域创新效率,而且通过合理引导和利用,还有助于缩小地区间的创新差距以及激发和强化原始创新溢出。这为国家发挥“互联网+”战略和创新驱动发展战略的“合力效应”、打好“战略组合拳”提供了重要启示。

The report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that,innovation is the first driving force of development,and the strategic support for building modern economic system.At present,the internet has become a powerful engine to promote China’s social-economic innovation development,and its impact on regional innovation efficiency is increasingly noticeable,however,the relatively systematic research is rare.The paper,for the first time,incorporated the internet into the analytical framework of improving regional innovation efficiency,based on the five dimensions of internet popularization,internet infrastructure,internet information resources,internet business application and internet development environment,constructed an index of provincial internet comprehensive development level,and utilized China provincial panel data,made the robust empirical test of the internet impact on regional innovation efficiency,including the mechanisms and differences.The results reflect that,the development of the internet has significantly promoted the regional innovation efficiency,become new momentum for China accelerating the innovative country construction in the new era.This conclusion is still valid under a series of robustness tests.The internet not only can directly promote China’s regional innovation efficiency,but also indirectly impact regional innovation efficiency by accelerating human capital accumulation,financial development and industrial upgrading,but the direct effect far exceeds the indirect effect;The internet impact of promoting regional innovation efficiency shows a significant non-linear characteristic of“marginal effect”increasing,which indicates the“dual power”of network effect and“Metcalfe’s Law”appears in regional innovation system.Under the constraints of human capital,financial development and industrial upgrading,the dynamic spillover effect of the Internet in the regional innovation system will be further strengthened;The central and western regional innovation system could benefit more from the development of the internet,and the innovation spillover dividend of the internet in the basic research field is higher than in applied research fields.The results reflect that,the development of internet could not only drive regional innovation efficiency,but also narrow the innovation gap between regions and stimulate and strengthen the original spillover.This study provides an important inspiration for China enlarging the“strategic combination”of“Internet+”and innovation-driven development as well as the enhancement of the“combination effect”.