Research on Innovation Performance in Heterogeneous Region: Evidence from Yangtze Economic Belt in China

Innovation has become the main impetus for regional development. Effective utilization of innovation resources is crucial in promoting sustainable innovation. From the theoretical aspect, there still exists uncertainty of how to effectively evaluate innovation performance. From the empirical aspect, we still doubt whether regions of higher economic level or high innovation quantity really show positive regional innovation performance, especially in heterogeneous regions. This paper uses DEA-Malmquist index to measure regional innovation performance of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China. Regions of similar performance levels are grouped by ward clustering, analysis regional innovation performance characteristics, and problem-solving paths of regions in different development stages. The empirical research proves that overall performance of Yangtze River Economic Belt is not high. The economic core area has realized increase of innovation volume through large amount of material input and resource consumption, instead of realizing full utilization of innovative resources; how to improve the utilization rate of existing technical resources has been neglected. Different regions with similar innovation performance show different characteristics and innovation problems, including resource mismatch, input redundancy, or insufficient output. There are also some differences in the way the region's specific innovation performance is improved.