The impact of agglomeration on city technological innovativeness — Empirical study based on the prefecture-level cities´ panel data of China

The impact of industrial agglomeration externalities on technological innovativeness attracts more and more people´s attention. From the perspective of agglomeration externalities, this paper selects 229 prefecture-level cities´ panel data of 29 provinces from 2006 to 2008 as samples, calculates the specialization index and diversification index of these cities and analyzes their characteristics. Through theoretical analysis and empirical research this paper studies the interaction mechanism and corresponding contribution of specialization and diversification externalities to cities´ technological innovativeness. The results show that: first, for the whole country, the specialized industrial structure has a positive impact on cities´ technological innovativeness, the diversified industrial structure negatively affects it; second, for both coastal cities and large cities, the the diversified industrial structure favors city technological innovativeness, for midwestern cities, especially small ones, the specialized industrial structure is conducive to innovation; Third, increasing the investment in education, enhancing the absorption of the international technology spillovers, promoting local economic development are all helpful to technological in-novativeness.