Convergence in China's high-tech industry development performance: a spatial panel model

At present, there exist both regional-scale and regional performance differences in China's high-tech industry development. Performance differences will inevitably affect resource allocation in regional high-tech industry and in the upgrading of industrial structure. Thus, this article conducts a systematic study of convergence issues in China's high-tech industry development performance by adopting the spatial panel econometric method and related approaches. First, to measure the comprehensive performance of China's high-tech industry development, the study applies the Malmquist index and efficacy coefficient method from the perspective of R&D efficiency and economic efficiency; then, by adopting a spatial autoregressive (SAR) panel data model, it studies the absolute beta convergence and convergence mechanism of China's provincial high-tech industry development performance from 2001 to 2013. The results indicate the existence of distinct absolute beta convergence in China's high-tech industry development performance since the 21st century, which is mainly due to technology diffusion. The convergence rate of central China is notably faster than that of other regions.