Agglomeration, Information Communication Technologies and the Spatial Spillover Effect of Innovation: Evidence from China

The development of a new generation of information communication technologies (ICTs), represented by the internet, big data, artificial intelligence, 5G, etc, is reshaping the geographic pattern of production organization, lifestyle and economic activities, which may make enterprises more spatially dispersed. However, in reality, a city with a stronger ICTs level is also the one with more innovation output and more agglomeration of innovative enterprises. Under the influence of ICTs, what kind of impact does innovation-oriented enterprise agglomeration have on innovation output? This paper uses the Spatial Dubin Model to study the spatial spillover effects of innovation-oriented enterprise agglomeration and ICTs on urban innovation output. The results show that the higher the degree of agglomeration of innovative enterprises and the ICTs level in a city, the higher the innovation performance of the city. The agglomeration degree and ICTs level of other cities have a positive spatial spillover effect on the innovation output of this city. From the overall effect, the application of ICTs weakens the innovation output affected by the agglomeration only within the city at the significance level of 10%.