Measurement and Convergence of China’s Regional Innovation Capability

Abstract

Regional economic differences occur in China; narrowing such differences requires solving the issues of regional innovation differences, which consist of innovation capability difference, innovation difference in structure and innovation efficiency difference. Additionally, regional innovation capability disparity is important to explain the imbalances between regional and international economic development. Thus, from the perspective of hi-tech industries, this study adopts the Theil index to analyse innovation capability difference and its evolution law in China and its five regions in 1998–2015 to explain the reasons for the differences in regional innovation capability on the spatial and factorial levels. Then convergence of innovation capability on different space scales is analysed by adopting the spatial panel of the β convergence model.