CHINA’S HIGH-QUALITY INNOVATION DEVELOPMENT FROM AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE: REGIONAL DIFFERENCES AND CONVERGENCE

High-quality innovation is an inevitable requirement for high-quality economic development, and an accurate grasp of the regional distribution characteristics of the level of high-quality innovation development (HQID) can better understand and simulate high-quality innovation. This paper constructs a dataset of high-value inventions based on the Chinese patent database using textual analysis methods and the criteria for High-Quality Inventions proposed by the State Intellectual Property Office, and explores inter-provincial variability and convergence by using the Theil index, convergence, and convergence. This paper finds that High-Quality Inventions are significantly and positively correlated with various indicators measuring the quality and value of patents. In general, the overall level of HQID is on an upward trend with clear differences among provinces, which shows a regional unbalanced but overall rapid development. From the regional differences of HQID, the regional differences of HQID have been narrowed, mainly within the region. In terms of the convergence of HQID, convergence, absolute convergence, conditional convergence, and club convergence exist nationally and within each region, which indicates that the gap between the national and regional levels of HQID has been narrowing over time. HQID has a positive promotion effect on the relationship between HQID and economic growth, economic growth rate, and total factor productivity. High-quality innovation can improve the quality of input factors, cultivate new dynamic energy for economic development, and then promote high-quality economic development. In the context of the shift of IP work from pursuing quantity to improving quality, the scientific understanding of high-quality innovation, the development status, and the differences of regional innovation high-quality development is of great significance for improving innovation quality and efficiency, and effectively supporting high-quality economic development.