Spatial Agglomeration and Innovation Capacity: Evidence of Spatial Allocation of Construction Land Resources by Provincial Governments in China

The Chinese government has proposed enhancing the land element guarantee capacity in advantageous regions. At the provincial level, this essentially means tilting and allocating construction land resources toward central cities with comparative advantages and increasing the spatial concentration of construction land (hereinafter referred to as “SCCL”) within the province, thereby maximizing the positive spatial agglomeration externalities of provincial central cities. Against the backdrop of China’s vigorous promotion of new-quality productive forces, whether SCCL can enhance innovation capacity (hereinafter referred to as “IC”) is a topic worthy of discussion. The share of the primate city is used to identify the degree of SCCL and the logarithm of patent grants per unit of built-up area to represent innovation capacity. Building on this foundation, this paper utilizes panel data from 23 provinces (autonomous regions) in China spanning 2000 to 2022 to examine the impact of SCCL on IC. The research finds the following: SCCL has an enhancing effect on IC. R&D investment, human capital, and marketization negatively moderate the relationship between SCCL and IC. The positive impact of SCCL on IC is enhanced with the increase in environmental regulation levels. The effect of SCCL on IC has a non-linear characteristic of “strengthening at both ends and collapsing in the middle.” The effect of SCCL on IC has spatial heterogeneity. Regarding different functional uses of construction land, only the spatial concentration of commercial and service land has a significant promoting effect on IC. This study provides provincial governments with decision-making support for enhancing IC through SCCL.