Do City Size and Population Density Influence Regional Innovation Output Evidence from China?

Cai Shukai,Zhou Xiaohong,Wang Haochen,Thippa Reddy G

doi:10.1155/2021/3582053

Cai Shukai, Zhou Xiaohong + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3582053

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Abstract

This paper proposed a substantial gap to a large-scale population density and city size on regional innovation output. To measure the impact of population density and city size on regional innovation output, this study employs the threshold effect model with panel data of 230 prefectures and cities from 2007 to 2016. Based on the econometric analysis, the results exhibit a positive and significant relationship between population density, city size, and innovation output. This correlation suggests that when one factor increases, the other increases in the parallel direction and vice versa. Moreover, when the city size expands the threshold value of 2.934 percent, the innovation promotes and increases the effects of urban-scale expansion. On the other hand, for medium- and low-density cities, the increase of urban population density has a significant and positive impact on urban innovation output. However, for high-density cities, the increase of population density has no significant impact on innovation output.

Highlights

With the advancement of the new urbanization strategy, the population mobility flows rapidly increase between urban and rural cities, while the population size of Chinese cities is constantly changing
The empirical research shows that the urban size and population density have a significant positive impact on regional innovation output
The empirical results of the threshold panel model show that when the city size exceeds the threshold value of 293.430 million people, the regional innovation output development effect of urban-scale expansion increases significantly

Summary

Introduction

With the advancement of the new urbanization strategy, the population mobility flows rapidly increase between urban and rural cities, while the population size of Chinese cities is constantly changing. Based on the panel data of 225 cities at the prefecture level and above in 2007-2016, this study examined the impact of city size and population density on regional innovation output. This study considers an empirical analysis on whether there is a threshold effect on the regional innovation output of urban scale and population density. The results from the proposed model illustrate that population density has a significant and positive effect on regional innovation output at the level of 1%. If the size of the city is large, but there is no certain population density support, it is difficult to form a sufficient agglomeration effect to promote the increase of regional innovation output. 0.372 t value in brackets. ∗ indicates significance under 10% significance level. ∗∗ indicates significance under 5% significance level. ∗∗∗ indicates significance under 1% significance level

Result

Findings

Conclusions and Policy Recommendations