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Against the backdrop of the current political developments in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, such as Ukraine, Poland, and Romania, the question arises as to the role played by economic transformation and the resulting innovation linkages in these countries over the last 20 years. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of economic and institutional dimensions on the development of CEE countries, explicitly distinguishing between European Union (EU) members and non‐members, and thus reflecting the differences in institutions and path dependency. Furthermore, the paper contrasts the performance of CEE countries with that of Western European countries. To achieve these objectives, the impact of factors such as innovation, institutions, and political practices on the economic development of 37 European countries from 2000 until 2020 is followed using fixed effects regression and Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The results of the analysis show the importance of institutional factors such as low levels of corruption, political freedoms, and intellectual property. The effect of institutional variables was particularly pronounced in the case of non‐EU countries, which indicates the particular importance of the development of stable institutions for achieving higher levels of economic development for this category of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the roles of different types of technological proximity on the interregional spillovers of innovation growth. Using a panel dataset containing Chinese province patents and R&D inputs from 2002 to 2019, this paper estimates a knowledge production function with the spatial weight matrices constructed based on the linkage‐based and structure‐based technological proximity. We find that the two types of technological proximity are significantly different and their contributions to interregional innovation spillovers differ. The structure‐based proximity shows a lower influence on spillovers and its effect in the process of interregional innovation spillovers is affected by the regional development level. This paper originates to clarify two conceptualizations of technological proximity, compare their influences on innovation spillovers, and explore their regional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) can enable win‒win style economic and ecological benefits. Using China's pilot scheme for the construction of the intellectual property protection (IPP) system as an example, this paper empirically tests the impact of IPP system reform on the GI level and its spatial spillover effect. The results show that IPP system reform has significantly promoted urban GI, indicating that a progressive reform model characterized by experimentalist governance is applicable to innovation policy practices in developing countries. The dynamic effect analysis shows that IPP system reform can be applied to continuously promote urban GI. The mechanism analysis shows that such use of IPP system reform can improve the level of urban GI by promoting investment and talent agglomeration, confirming the viewpoint of the institutionalist school. The heterogeneity analysis shows that IPP system reform plays a stronger role in promoting GI in peripheral cities than in central cities, in cities with lower rather than higher scientific and educational levels and in cities with weaker rather than stronger GI capacity. Consistent with the theory of institutional diffusion, IPP system reform has a significant spatial spillover effect, promoting GI activities in surrounding cities while working to improve the local GI level. This paper affirms the effectiveness of the pilot regional innovation policy with Chinese characteristics, with important theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of great significance to explore the causality between regional integration (RI) and PM2.5 pollution within urban agglomerations in the current pursuit of ecological civilization construction and high‐quality development. Using panel data of 285 prefecture‐level cities in China from 2003 to 2016, this study considers the expansion of the city economic coordination committee in Yangtze River Delta (YRDECC) as a quasi‐natural experiment of RI, and use a difference‐in difference method to explore the effect and inner mechanisms of RI on PM2.5 concentration. After a descriptive analysis of the spatial‐temporal variation trend of the PM2.5 concentration in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the empirical results show that RI helps to alleviate 4.8% of the PM2.5 concentration overall. For the original cities, the reduction effect on the PM2.5 concentration is 5.2%, for the new cities, however, RI exacerbates 2.1% of the local PM2.5 concentration. A series of robustness tests confirm the validity of the baseline results, and further indicate that the effect of RI remains significant in the long term and starts to increase from the third year. Furthermore, the reduction effect of RI on PM2.5 concentration is more pronounced in cities with larger scales, more developed economies, and higher degrees of marketization. The mechanism analysis shows that industrial transfer, population migration and technological innovation are significant channels of RI that affect PM2.5 concentrations. The conclusions of this paper provide a new path to alleviate PM2.5 pollution and achieve ecological conservation and high‐quality development in the city cluster area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are debates about cluster heterogeneity, network structures, and innovations. The difference in the degree to which firms joined in the internal and external networks of heterogeneous clusters can affect innovation performance. There is still a lack of empirical evidence on how networks or spatial factors can differentially affect innovation efficiency due to cluster heterogeneity. China has endogenous clusters formed by small and medium‐sized firms and numerous clusters mainly based on government planning instrument, such as industrial zones and high‐tech parks. There are controversies over these planned cluster, such as insufficient firm connections and weak innovation effectiveness.Cluster innovation is a complex socio‐economic process that combines endogenous context, exogenous factors and interacts with multi‐spatial relationships. This perspective may explain the differences in which heterogeneous clusters improve efficiency. This paper draws on first‐hand data obtained from 188 questionnaires. The Lingang Equipment Manufacturing Cluster in Shanghai and the Taizhou Machine Tool Manufacturing Cluster in Zhejiang serve as examples of heterogeneous clusters. We combine the cluster's endogenous and exogenous characteristics, network size and strength of network ties, and local and non‐local innovation spaces to discuss the impact on innovation efficiency. Expecting to provide a reference for improving the innovation efficiency of heterogeneous clusters in developing economies. The results suggest that regardless of local or non‐local scales, exogenous clusters have a more pronounced effect of local network size and non‐local tie strength on innovation performance based on demand for proximity to customers and suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the opening decades of the twenty‐first century certain cities around the world emerged as hubs of entrepreneurial innovation. This paper explores this urban economic change phenomenon through in‐depth and comparative qualitative analysis. It focuses on the recent contemporary history of New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Tokyo and Shanghai prior to the global COVID pandemic. Based on an analysis of the drivers, mechanisms and processes of change, it is found that these cities acted as places of possibility for many individuals who previously may have been unlikely to engage in entrepreneurship. The cities were found to have established new development paths through entrepreneurial innovation stemming from co‐creation network dynamics, with key human agents playing pivotal roles. Common elements include the rise of venture capital, the growth of entrepreneurial cultures, and institutional policy changes. Notably, entrepreneurial innovation was found to be closely tied to changes in large corporates. This innovation evolved through the proliferation of new infrastructure such as co‐working spaces and innovation incubators, with each city being utilised as a test‐bed for new ideas. Finally, the emergence of a darker side to entrepreneurial innovation is found in terms of growing urban inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural diversity brought by migrants has attracted widespread interest in recent years. This paper investigates the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation by constructing panel data of provincial migrant cultural diversity and combining them with invention applications data from China's State Intellectual Property Office. The empirical results show that the migrant cultural diversity, measured by migrant's hukou and dialect respectively, has a positive impact on regional innovation. The effect still holds after a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Furthermore, the further analysis implies that the effects of the migrant cultural diversity in workers aged from 30 to 50, engaged in an innovative occupation, working in high market‐competitiveness or inclusive provinces are more pronounced. Our study supplements the current research on the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]