The Threshold Effect of FDI on Regional Innovation Capability— From the Perspective of Intellectual Property Protection

Abstract

As one of the important channels of technology spillover, foreign direct investment (FDI) has a significant impact on regional innovation capability, which is restricted by the intensity of intellectual property protection. In order to explore the relationship between these three factors, this paper constructs a nonlinear threshold regression model based on China’s provincial panel data from 2009 to 2018, and empirically analyzes the threshold effect of FDI on regional innovation capability with the intensity of intellectual property protection as the threshold variable. The results show that the impact of FDI on regional innovation capability has a significant single threshold effect of intellectual property protection intensity. Only when the intensity of intellectual property protection remains near the threshold value, can FDI promote regional innovation capability to the greatest extent.