Abstract
In China, with the deepening of the reform of industrial structures, the improvement of technological innovation has become a key issue. This is not only related to whether the strategic development of Chinese science and technology can be achieved, but also whether the Chinese economy and high-quality human capital can develop sustainably. Based on the theoretical boundary of sustainable development—free transfer of information—we see that sticky wages are the embodiment of information dissemination. Under the dual effects of profit-seeking behavior and information barriers, the relationship between the sticky wages of technological innovation talents (TIT), as the most profitable labor force, and technological innovation efficiency (TIE) has become more complex, and so far we still have a limited understanding of it. We explore this issue in an empirical study by using a two-stage chain Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) of TIE followed by modifying the wages of TIT; finally, we build a collaborative evolution model with spatial effects on a large dataset (from 2007 to 2016). The results show that the overall Chinese TIE is relatively low, and in the central and western regions the TIE has been seriously reversed; there are also divergences in the TIE at different stages in the regions we focus on. As the output of technological innovation, except for initial results (such as patents), the more important value is whether it has an ability to transform the initial results into production, and the core of it is whether it can match the market environment and technology transfer system (for example, market mechanism, transformation incentive mechanism, and institutional mechanism). So, considering these aspects, the central and west of China are obviously insufficient, while the east has obvious advantages; this can also explain the results of spatial diffusion, namely, in the eastern region it is higher than in other areas, but the gap between them is gradually narrowing; lastly, from the perspective of synergy, the wage stickiness of TIT in the central region is larger than that of the eastern and western regions, and the evolutionary relationship in the former is “extruding” while in the latter it is “cooperative.” Mainly due to the popularity of the eastern innovation network and the initial state of the west, the barriers of information transmission are relatively low, while the central part is undergoing economic transformation, so its extreme demand for TIT has pushed up the cost of information transmission.
Highlights
An interesting phenomenon is that, no matter if we focus on the technological innovation talents (TIT) wage or the technological innovation efficiency (TIE), the central region has values slightly smaller than the western region, while it is clear that the economic development of the former is stronger than that of the latter—these two facts seem to contradict each other
We draw on the idea of a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and decompose the traditional calculation of TIE into a two-stage chain system—the R&D stage and the practical or commercialization stage—followed by the two-agent collaborative evolution model with spatial diffusion behavior and information lag behavior
Using regional entropy and gravity models, we examined the relationship between TIT wages and TIE in different regions in the period 2007–2016
Summary
The labor force, generally referred to as one of the factors of production, and whether it can keep up with economic fluctuations to self-regulate in a timely manner and ensure that different regions improve their adaptability to match the industry structure to achieve sustainable regional development in the context of existing resource endowments and environmental pressures is reported to be a crucial issue influencing a region’s or even a country’s employed population, social stability, wealth accumulation, enterprise survival and development, especially as the labor marketability level has been increasing with the rapid pace of economic globalization [1].considering the vastness of the Chinese territory and the huge differences in regions’ development, the problems of economic structure revealed by the fluctuations of labor force are more prominent, which restricts the sustainability of the overall Chinese economic development. The labor force, generally referred to as one of the factors of production, and whether it can keep up with economic fluctuations to self-regulate in a timely manner and ensure that different regions improve their adaptability to match the industry structure to achieve sustainable regional development in the context of existing resource endowments and environmental pressures is reported to be a crucial issue influencing a region’s or even a country’s employed population, social stability, wealth accumulation, enterprise survival and development, especially as the labor marketability level has been increasing with the rapid pace of economic globalization [1]. The central region has taken on the role of linking the east with the west; whether the transformation of its industrial structure can be successfully completed has a critical bearing on the other two areas. As a pioneer in economic reform, the rich east, due to its geographical advantages, has been leading the way in technological innovations and economic development [2,3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
