IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v93y2025ics1043951x25001191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Science and city: Exploring science's contribution to China's urban technological innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Dai, Xin
  • Tang, Jie
  • Yin, Deyun

Abstract

Although science plays an ever more vital role in the modern knowledge economy, its influence over regional innovation remains highly uneven across space. Using panel data of 269 Chinese cities from 2000 to 2017, this paper investigates the spatial dynamics between local scientific knowledge and regional technological innovation. Our results reveal that: (1) local scientific knowledge, including applied science and basic science, significantly enhances regional innovation output, with persistent effects diminishing over time. (2) The efficiency of scientific knowledge's transformation varies across city scales: medium and mega cities convert science into innovation more efficiently, while only super cities can turn basic science into highly original breakthrough inventions. (3) Within metropolitan regions, science-intensive cities foster outward knowledge spillover beyond their administrative boundaries thus provide knowledge sources for innovation in much wider areas, whereas industry-specialized cities’ innovation benefits from both local and external scientific inputs. (4) Mechanism analysis highlights that regional absorptive capacity and university-industry collaboration are key channels, while interactions with local innovation ecosystems and supporting environments further facilitate such transformation process. This paper offers rich policy implications for fostering science-led regional development through tailored place-based urban innovation strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Dai, Xin & Tang, Jie & Yin, Deyun, 2025. "Science and city: Exploring science's contribution to China's urban technological innovation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25001191
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102461
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X25001191
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102461?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O35 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Social Innovation
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25001191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.