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Digitalization and greening are key themes in global development, the manufacturing industry, as a major sector of energy consumption and carbon emissions, is in urgent need of transformation to realize energy conservation and emission reduction, digital transformation provides an opportunity for its green development. However, whether digital transformation can restrain the carbon emission intensity (CEI) of enterprises is still controversial. Based on the data of China's A‐share manufacturing listed companies from 2013 to 2020, this paper uses fixed effect model and intermediary effect model to explore the relationship between digital transformation and enterprise CEI and the influence path. the results show that: (1) Digital transformation has significantly reduced the CEI of manufacturing enterprises. (2) Mechanism analysis indicates that green technological innovation and resource allocation efficiency play a chain mediating role in this relationship. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission reduction effect of digital transformation is more significant when enterprises belong to an energy‐intensive manufacturing industry or face strong environmental regulations and industry competition. The analysis of this paper not only deepens enterprises' understanding of digital transformation and green development but also provides a policy basis for China to advocate the coordinated development of the digital economy and green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) can enable win‒win style economic and ecological benefits. Using China's pilot scheme for the construction of the intellectual property protection (IPP) system as an example, this paper empirically tests the impact of IPP system reform on the GI level and its spatial spillover effect. The results show that IPP system reform has significantly promoted urban GI, indicating that a progressive reform model characterized by experimentalist governance is applicable to innovation policy practices in developing countries. The dynamic effect analysis shows that IPP system reform can be applied to continuously promote urban GI. The mechanism analysis shows that such use of IPP system reform can improve the level of urban GI by promoting investment and talent agglomeration, confirming the viewpoint of the institutionalist school. The heterogeneity analysis shows that IPP system reform plays a stronger role in promoting GI in peripheral cities than in central cities, in cities with lower rather than higher scientific and educational levels and in cities with weaker rather than stronger GI capacity. Consistent with the theory of institutional diffusion, IPP system reform has a significant spatial spillover effect, promoting GI activities in surrounding cities while working to improve the local GI level. This paper affirms the effectiveness of the pilot regional innovation policy with Chinese characteristics, with important theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural diversity brought by migrants has attracted widespread interest in recent years. This paper investigates the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation by constructing panel data of provincial migrant cultural diversity and combining them with invention applications data from China's State Intellectual Property Office. The empirical results show that the migrant cultural diversity, measured by migrant's hukou and dialect respectively, has a positive impact on regional innovation. The effect still holds after a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Furthermore, the further analysis implies that the effects of the migrant cultural diversity in workers aged from 30 to 50, engaged in an innovative occupation, working in high market‐competitiveness or inclusive provinces are more pronounced. Our study supplements the current research on the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post‐reform China has experienced rapid urbanization and received much academic attention. However, few studies have focused on the overall characteristics of urban governance from both institutional and practical perspectives. This paper discusses the results of a content analysis of 79 cases collected during the first Awards for Best Urban Governance Practice in the Yangtze River Delta. This region is a pioneer of urban governance practice in China. The coding for the content analysis focused on four variables, including domains, actors, digitality, and duration, which were applied to the application forms for the award selection process. The statistical results demonstrate the characteristics of China's urban governance practices. (1) The government continues to dominate in China's urban governance, but the role of social organizations has become increasingly significant. (2) The content of China's urban affairs has transformed from economic growth to citizen‐oriented issues of livelihoods and livability. (3) New technology and digitality of new opportunities are leading China's urban governance transformation. (4) China's urban governance practices are a durable process for adaptation accumulation of experiences. This paper presents the characteristics and distribution of China's urban governance practices to lay the groundwork for future comparative urban studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can the enforcement of policies in the past influence a society's future adoption of information communication technologies (ICTs)? In this paper, we tackle this question by exploring how past e‐governance policies influence citizens' willingness to use the health QR code, which is a COVID‐19 tracing app widely used in China's pandemic control. Past policies regarding smart‐city development in China involve two aspects: the construction of electronic infrastructure and the applications of specific technologies. Empirical analysis based on a nationwide dataset in China suggests that past policies exhibit persuasive effects and influence citizens' acceptance of the health QR code. Specifically, e‐governance applications in cities significantly enhance citizens' acceptance through the demonstration of their usefulness. However, the construction of e‐governance infrastructure per se does not have the same impact on citizens' acceptance. By connecting citizens' acceptance of new technology with past e‐governance policies, the study illustrates a nuanced policy feedback mechanism through which past policies can substantially reshape public opinion by policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to externalities and market failure, innovation activities are facing insufficient investment. Venture capital guidance funds (VCGFs) are an important policy implemented by China's government to guide private capital to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship activities, and it can have an important impact on scientific and technological innovation. Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China, this paper empirically analyzed the impact of VCGFs on innovation and its mechanism. VCGFs can significantly promote urban innovation and this role is sustained for three years following VCGF establishment. Further research shows that VCGFs do not have a direct impact on innovation but promote innovation by promoting the accumulation of innovative talent and capital, and the capital accumulation effect of VCGFs is the main path through which they promote urban innovation. Corruption is also a factor that restricts the effectiveness of an innovation policy. Thus, China's top‐down anticorruption campaigns can strengthen the ability of VCGFs to promote urban innovation. This paper opens the black box to show the mechanism through which VCGFs impact urban innovation, affirms the important role of the government in the regional innovation system, and clarifies the debate on government innovation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial amount of research has examined the collaborations within technology‐based industries, but how technological intensity relates to the evolution of interregional research collaboration is less well understood. This paper investigates the dynamic changes of spatial structure and determinants of intercity research collaborations in the sectoral innovation networks of high‐tech industries contrasting to low and medium technology (LMT) industries in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD), China. Using the sectoral patent application data over the period 2008–2016, the social network analysis results confirm a higher level of triangles in the co‐invention network of high‐tech industries than within LMT industries. Moreover, the empirical results through Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) show that, compared to LMT industries, collaboration in the co‐invention network of high‐tech industries is less sensitive to geographical and linguistic distance, while more subject to economic distance, regional educational level and government support with time. In addition, cognitive proximity and regional R&D intensity are both important prerequisite in the formation of these two collaborative networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the core element of technological innovation, financial resources can play the role of financial support, risk sharing, service guidance, and other aspects, thereby enhancing the efficiency of sci‐tech innovation (STIE). Whether there is a complex nonlinear economic threshold effect of financial development (FD) on STIE in different regional context is worth further discussion. This paper selects the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) of China as the research object, based on the panel data of 110 cities, uses the Hansen threshold model to test the nonlinear "economic threshold effect" of FD on STIE. The results show that under different development scenarios in different regions, FD has a nonlinear "economic threshold effect" on STIE. This study extends the research sample to the cities of river basin, and elucidating the importance of regional context to the nonlinear "economic threshold effect" of FD on STIE further proposes that the sole focus of promoting the quantity of technology innovation by taking advantage of FD do not guarantee a positive effect on the development of STIE. Instead, the diverse, multiple financial policy instruments and stimulating the driving force of FD should be adopted towards the improvement of STIE in a phased and context specific manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years, university–industry–government collaborative innovation has received extensive attention in theory and practice. However, the question of how to integrate and understand collaborative innovation from a theoretical perspective has not been thoroughly studied. This study designed a regional collaborative innovation evaluation model based on the triple helix theory. The invention patent data of 31 provincial regions in China for the last 5 years are used to investigate the regional differences and dynamic evolution of the collaborative innovation and the interaction and coupling relationship between intraregional and interregional industries, universities, and governments empirically. This study found that the number of invention patents in China has rapidly grown yearly, indicating that industries are the most important source of invention patents. The difference in the regional distribution of China's collaborative innovation output is remarkable, showing a pattern of "strong east and weak west" in the total volume and "south fast north slow" in the growth rate. The bilateral synergistic effect of industry–university relations is strong considering two‐dimensional cooperation, and the relationship is close. Collaborative innovation is dominated by intraregional cooperation, whereas interregional cooperation shows a growing trend. The tripartite relationship between university, industry, and government shows a loose trend. Certain provinces with weak regional innovation capabilities, such as Gansu, Hainan, Xinjiang, and Qinghai, have a relatively close cooperation level, which is in the stage of government‐led innovation and development. However, Guangdong, Chongqing, Anhui, Jiangsu, and other provinces with outstanding regional innovation capability do not have close cooperation between universities, industries, and governments, which are in the stage of innovation and development led by industries. This paper discusses the policy implications for different regions based on the research conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new era of Chinese economy stepping toward high‐quality development, with the enhancement of the public environmental protection awareness and continuous improvement of technological innovation level, it is of great significance to study how technological innovation reduces water contamination against unofficial environmental regulations, which is also the primary task of construction of ecological civilization. The purpose of this paper is to study the contribution of technological innovation to water pollution intensity at different quantile levels and to test the nonlinear relationship between technological innovation and water pollution emission intensity under informal environmental pollution. On the basis of the provincial panel data of China from 2002 to 2018, the model of quantile and panel threshold was constructed to empirically analyze the structural mutation and threshold effects of technological innovation on the intensity of water pollution in China against the environment of informal environmental regulation. The study found that the marginal effects of technological innovation on the intensity of water pollution in China had undergone structural changes. Under different water pollution intensity, technological innovation can reduce pollution between 0.167% and 0.415%; with informal environmental regulation as the threshold variable, when the intensity of informal environmental regulation is less than the threshold value of 0.2168, technological innovation has a significant inhibitory effect on China's water pollution intensity, and when the intensity of informal environmental regulation exceeds the threshold value, the mitigation effect of technological innovation on China's water pollution intensity is more significant. The inhibition effect of technological innovation on water pollution emission intensity changed from 0.437 to 0.474. Therefore, when formulating environmental pollution policies, local governments should make rational use of informal environmental regulations and technological innovation, improve the informal environmental regulation system, and promote water pollution control with science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While suburban areas have been typically related with urban sprawl, low density, cheap land price and low‐end manufacturing industries, relatively little attention has been paid to the spatial organization of innovation in suburban areas. In some Chinese cities, development zones (kai fa qu) in their suburban areas which are generally regarded as major spaces for traditional manufacturing industries have been transforming into spaces for innovation. This paper provides a case study of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province in Eastern China by investigating and explaining the learning and innovation processes in suburban development zones. Drawing upon a unique database on 733 state‐certified high‐tech firms in Nanjing from 2008 to 2012 which contains detailed information on their addresses and number of patents, we observe strong spatial disparity in the distribution of innovation. Suburban districts of Nanjing where its three national‐level development zones and many provincial‐level development zones are located have become major spaces for innovation of the city. The planning of industrial clusters in development zones, the place‐based investment in the suburbs, and the suburbanization of universities are three major mechanisms behind the learning and innovation processes in Nanjing's suburban development zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through applying exploratory spatial data analysis ( ESDA) and confirmatory spatial data analysis ( CSDA), this paper examines the space-time dynamics of innovation at the provincial level in China from 2000 to 2011. We first investigate the trend of regional inequality in innovation in China and then use ESDA methods to visualize the space-time relationship between patent applications and innovation determinants. Impacts of innovation determinants on the space-time dynamics of innovation are also examined by analyzing the knowledge production function with the spatial panel Durbin model. Knowledge spillovers from both the R&D and the innovation outcome perspectives are highlighted in CSDA. We have found an increasingly intensified coastal-interior divide with growing spatial clusters and more innovative activities in the coastal region. We have also found a close space-time relationship between innovation and its determinants. Lastly, innovation spillovers cross province boundaries, and knowledge from a province's neighboring provinces has substantial effects on innovation activities of the province. This paper highlights positive knowledge spillover effects between regions, the close relationship between innovation and its determinants, and the importance of spatial externalities in innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creative destruction is a key driving force behind industrial development. The continuing process of creative destruction provides an impetus to regional industrial renewal. Our analytical framework emphasizes the ways in which firm exit creates a stimulus for firm entry is complementary to the process of technological change and industrial renewal articulated by Schumpeter who pays attention to how new entrants bring in radical innovation and new products, making incumbents' products and technologies obsolete and forcing them to exit or catch up. Using firm-level data of China's industries during 1998-2008, this paper seeks to argue that the relationship between firm exit and entry has been constantly shaped by an assemblage of various factors, including not only firm characteristics, but also industrial linkages, and most importantly, national and regional institutional contexts, particularly in the context of China where a triple process of decentralization, globalization, and privatization has resulted in enormous spatial and temporal variations in the economic and institutional landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today rapidly growing economies depend more on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge. As such, strategies for enhancing research and innovation capabilities have come to occupy a more important position in many developing nations, including China. Already the leading production center, and often seen as China's economic locomotive, Shanghai is striving aggressively to retain its national preeminence and has launched concerted efforts to increase local innovative output. The primary purpose of this paper is to understand how state-led efforts have fared in promoting technology innovation. By situating the city in the national and global context, the paper shows that Shanghai has gained a substantial lead in developing an innovation environment with extensive global linkages and leading research institutions. Recent efforts in building up the research and innovation capacity of the enterprise sector have begun to show progress. Although firms are enthusiastic about its future as an innovation center, Shanghai continues to face challenges of inadequate protection of intellectual property, lack of venture capital investment, and the tightening supply of highly qualified knowledge workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovation-diffusion model was developed with agent-based modelling ( ABM); the model is used to study technical innovation and its diffusion process in China. The results are as follows: only a small fraction of firms conduct independent product-innovation, and most firms prefer imitation and/or purchases; most of the innovative firms are located in the East; approximately three or four technology generation products can exist in the market simultaneously; preferential policies can speed the process of innovation diffusion and improve economies of less developed areas, especially in Middle China; lastly, preferential policies can also improve the labour attractiveness of the Middle, West and Northeast and reduce emigration to the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]