Geographical Boundary of Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from Elite Universities and High-Speed Rail

Abstract

This study utilizes the large-scale high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure development in China as a quasi-experiment. By multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) model, we investigate the impact of HSR connections to elite universities on the innovation performance of local listed companies. Our findings reveal that HSR connections with elite universities increase the number of invention and utility model patents held by local listed companies, while having no substantial effect on the quantity of design patents. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of connections to elite universities is more pronounced in regions with well-developed infrastructure and lower marketization levels, as well as in non-state-owned and larger enterprises. In the mechanism analysis, our results demonstrate that HSR connections to elite universities primarily promote corporate innovation by stimulating the mobility of high-quality talent, improving the structure and level of corporate human capital and R&D investments, and fostering collaborative research and development with elite universities.

Keywords: Knowledge spillover, corporate innovation, elite universities