Abstract:

This paper uses the patent authorization data of 91 cities in the Yellow River basin as the indicators for measuring urban innovation capability to reveal the temporal-spatial evolution characteristics of innovation in the Yellow River Basin during 2004-2019. Then the spatial econometric model has been constructed to analyze influencing factors. The results are as follows： Firstly， there is a very obvious economic zonality of the innovation pattern in the Yellow River Basin which presents a ladder decreasing trend distribution from downstream to midstream， and to upstream. The spatial distribution pattern is relatively stable. Secondly， the spatial correlation of urban innovation capability is significantly positive in the Yellow River Basin， which indicates that the similar areas of urban innovation capability are high or low concentration. Among them， the high value agglomeration area is located in Shandong Peninsula in the downstream of the Yellow River and the low value agglomeration area is mainly distributed in the provinces in the midstream and upstream of the Yellow River， and the range of low value agglomeration area is much larger than that of high value agglomeration area. Thirdly the six factors of government financial investment， talent elements， economic foundation， information level， financial environment and economic extroversion affect the formation and evolution of the spatial pattern of urban innovation capability jointly in the Yellow River Basin. Especially， information level and government financial investment are the most important factors， followed by economic foundation and talent elements. Financial environment and economic extroversion have little impact on urban innovation capability.

Key words: urban innovation capability, temporal-spatial pattern, the Yellow River Basin