Interregional Flow of R&D Resources and Export Competitiveness of High-Tech Products

As China's high-tech industry has evolved in response to the ongoing process of reform and opening up, it has gradually become a strategic domain of international competition. The competitiveness of this industry's exports has a significant impact on its comparative advantage. The interregional flow of R&D factors plays a pivotal role in enhancing the competitiveness of products exported by China. This paper adopts a spatial perspective, focusing on R&D personnel and R&D capital as the core, to explore their impact on the export competitiveness of high-tech products across 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China. The results demonstrate the presence of a positive spatial autocorrelation in the export competitiveness of high-tech products among the 30 provinces and cities. The analysis indicates that the flow of R&D factors can significantly enhance the export competitiveness of local and surrounding areas, highlighting the presence of discernible regional differences. In accordance with the findings of this study, a series of policy recommendations are proposed to address the identified challenges. These recommendations include the construction of a gradient talent incentive mechanism, the establishment of a cross-regional collaborative innovation platform, the enhancement of the market-oriented allocation system of factors, the reduction of barriers to capital flows, the implementation of a robust intellectual property protection strategy, the improvement of the infringement punishment mechanism, and the promotion of a differentiated regional development paradigm.