Dynamic evolution and influencing factors of coupling coordination between innovation environment and transformation development of resource-based cities in Gansu province, China

Abstract

Studying the internal relationship between the innovation environment and the transformation development of resource-based cities from the perspective of coupling and coordination helps reveal the mechanism between them, which is of great significance to sustainable development of resource-based cities. This study reconstructs the index system for innovative environment and transformation development. We used the coupling coordination degree model, Epanechnikov function, and panel quantile regression model to analyze the coupling coordination level, dynamic evolution characteristics, and influencing factors of innovative environment and transformation development of resource-based cities in Gansu Province from 2009 to 2019. The study shows that the innovation environment index and the transformation development index of resource-based cities increased significantly during the study period. The innovation environment index of resource-based cities has been greatly improved, showing a dynamic evolution trend of rapid growth and development characteristics of “low-level, fast growth”. There are differences in the characteristics of transformation development in resource-based cities, but on the whole, it shows a trend of increasing fluctuation. The state of coupling coordination has changed from a severely unbalanced state to a moderately unbalanced state; some cities have turned to a low-level coordination state, and the overall trend is presented to optimize the process continuously. The quantile regression results show that the level of economic development and industrial structure has a significant positive effect on improving the coupling coordination degree of the two. The degree of government intervention has a negative impact. The level of capital investment has a negative effect at a high score but has no significant impact at a low score. This study tries to provide a scientific basis for formulating the policy of coordinated development between an innovation environment and transformation development of resource-based cities and also provides a reference for high-quality development of other resource-based cities.