技术创新作为推动经济高质量发展的核心引擎,一直是政府、学界和业界共同关注的重点问题。然而,技术的非中性特点可能会导致区域发展失衡。因此,如何在推动技术发展的同时缓解其分配失衡问题是一个亟待研究的重要议题。基于此,本文利用2000—2019年中国地级市的数据,在考察技术非中性特征存在性的基础上,创新性地从技能偏向和创新扩散效应两个维度检验技术创新影响区域协调发展的内在机制。研究发现:首先,技术创新具有显著的非中性特征、会扩大区域收入差距,这一结论在使用工具变量法缓解内生性问题和进行稳健性检验后仍然成立;其次,技能偏向效应使得高技能劳动力从技术创新中受益更多,而高技能劳动力往往更多地集聚在发达地区,进而导致区域收入差距扩大;最后,创新扩散效应通过技术溢出促进后发地区生产效率提升,形成区域收入差距的补偿机制。综上所述,本研究揭示了技术创新影响区域收入差距的技能偏向和创新扩散效应,并提供了技术扩散有助于缓解区域发展失衡的经验证据,为破解经济增长与区域协调发展的目标冲突提供了新思路。

Technological innovation as a key driver of high-value economic development has been a major concern of governments, academia and industries alike. However, the non-neutral nature of technology can lead to regional development imbalances. Therefore, how to promote technological development while alleviating its distributional imbalance is an important issue that urgently needs to be studied. Based on this, this paper used the data of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2019 to investigate the existence of the non-neutral character of technology, and innovatively examined the intrinsic mechanism of technological innovation affecting regional coordinated development from the dimensions of skill-directed effect and innovation diffusion effect. The study found that: First, technological innovation has significant non-neutral characteristics and widens the regional income gap, which is still valid after using the instrumental variable method to alleviate the endogeneity problem and employing a robustness tests; Second, the skill-directed effect makes high-skilled workers benefit more from technological innovation, which tends to cluster more in developed regions, thus leading to widening of regional income gaps; Finally, the innovation diffusion effect through technological spillovers promotes the productivity improvement of late-developed regions through technological spillovers, which forms a compensatory mechanism for regional income gaps. In summary, this study has revealed the skill-directed and innovation diffusion effects of technological innovation on regional income disparities, and it will provide empirical evidence that technology diffusion helps to alleviate regional imbalances, thus providing new insights on how to resolve the conflict between the innovation-driven goals and the coordinated regional development.