Can the Establishment of University Science and Technology Parks Promote Urban Innovation? Evidence from China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The submitted manuscript is interesting. It is worth making a few changes to increase its value.
I propose to clarify the purpose of the research to make it more transparent. It is useful to separate the results and discussion sections and create a results and discussion section.
The chapter discussion should be extended to compare the situation of China with the situation in other countries, citing the relevant literature. I propose to enrich the literature with items from other countries.
Line 275-276, 621-626 - I suggest moving the formulas to the methodology chapter.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments.
Comment 1: I propose to clarify the purpose of the research to make it more transparent.
Response: We add expressions and clarify the research significance of the manuscript.
In China, it has been 20 years since the establishment of the NUSTP, but there is a lack of quantitative analysis of the impact of NUSTP establishment on urban innovation. The literature [20] points out that studies related to UK and US parks are mainly due to the availability of data, and in China and Spain, the emphasis is mainly on case studies. Therefore, using data to quantitatively assess the impact of NUSTPs with Chinese characteristics on urban innovation can provide policy development ideas for the Chinese government.
[8] Hobbs, K. G., Link, A. N., & Scott, J. T. (2017). Science and technology parks: an annotated and analytical literature review. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 42(4), 957-976.
Comment 2: It is useful to separate the results and discussion sections and create a results and discussion section.
Response: Thank you for the constructive comments. Writing the conclusion separately from the discussion can effectively increase readability. We have written the baseline regression results and the discussion section in two separate subsections.
Comment 3: The chapter discussion should be extended to compare the situation of China with the situation in other countries, citing the relevant literature. I propose to enrich the literature with items from other countries.
Response: Our results differ from the literature [18], which states that the more a university is involved in the management of an engaged campus the slower a firm brings innovation to market. An analysis of Spanish science and technology parks in the literature [19] found that university participation in science and technology parks had a negative impact on tenants' innovation sales, but a positive impact on the number of patent applications. The reason for the different results is that Chinese university science and technology parks are mainly government-led and require innovative outputs, while foreign science and technology parks are mainly determined by the universities themselves and the outputs may not be announced or made public to the government. Thus, there is a lack of data for empirical analysis, a phenomenon similar to the literature [8].
[18] Albahari, A., Pérez-Canto, S., Barge-Gil, A., & Modrego, A. (2017). Technology parks versus science parks: Does the university make the difference?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 116, 13-28.
[19] Albahari, A., Catalano, G., & Landoni, P. (2013). Evaluation of national science park systems: a theoretical framework and its application to the Italian and Spanish systems. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 25(5), 599-614.
Comment 4: Line 275-276, 621-626 - I suggest moving the formulas to the methodology chapter.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion that the difference-in-difference method requires a parallel trend test, and that the parallel trend test is only a part of the DID method, a small part of the robustness test in this paper. The parallel trend test only strengthens the robustness of the results in this paper, and the introduction of the method in Chapter 2 is still mainly the construction of the DID model.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The study on analyzing the impact National University Science and Technology Park (NUSTP) on promoting innovation in China is important, current and relevant. The authors have done well in investigating the issue at hand. In introduction, the authors are suggested to break the 2nd paragraph of introduction into small paragraphs so that readers can easily follow and connect information (see lines 46-87). Also, cite examples of Hefei National Science and Technology Park and Shanghai National University Science and Technology Park. Research background, gap and goals are clearly presented. Research methods looks reasonable in investigating the topic. Although, my experience in quantitative analysis is limited. Research results seems to aligns with study goals. Conclusion in written well, however, study limitation and future direction on research is not presented. There are some grammatical errors and sentence formation issues throughout the manuscript and authors are encouraged to get the manuscript edited by English native speaker.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your suggestion, we have stated it in sections. We then used the links recommended by the editor for language changes, manuscript restructuring, etc. Thank you again for your kind comments to make our paper more readable.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Author,
Thank you for your interesting paper. Though, this topic is not new in academic research and has been addressed previously, but the phenomenon might be new in Chinese context. I would, however, request the authors to revise the paper taking into consideration that the paper will be read by international readers and thus require to explain in details various terms and Chinese contexts that they have mentioned. For ex. the term "Chinese central enterprises", what do you mean by? There is a term we use "State owned enterprises (SOE) which is known to the academic community. Similarly, there are few more such issues that can be addressed.
-Please shorten the sentences. this could be due to the translation from Chinese to English.
-Please explain "explanatory variable", please note "DID" is a methodology not the explanatory variable and the explanation that you given is wrong. your paper can be rejected only errors in this section 3 "Data". It seems it is not clear to you what is dependent and independent variables?
-Please compare and contrast with your findings and methodologies with the current literatures.
Thank you.
Author Response
Thank you for your constructive comments on our paper.
Comment 1: For ex. the term "Chinese central enterprises", what do you mean by? There is a term we use "State owned enterprises (SOE) which is known to the academic community. Similarly, there are few more such issues that can be addressed.
Response: Chinese central enterprises are referred to as "centrally managed enterprises", which are wholly state-owned or state-controlled enterprises that are managed by the Central People's Government (State Council) or entrusted by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Organization (SASAC), or other central ministries (associations). According to the division of China's state-owned assets management authority, state-owned enterprises are divided into central enterprises (state-owned enterprises supervised and managed by the central government) and local enterprises (state-owned enterprises supervised and managed by local governments).
Comment 2: Please shorten the sentences. this could be due to the translation from Chinese to English.
Response: We used the editor's recommended language revision service to revise the language and structure of the manuscript.
Comment 3: Please explain "explanatory variable", please note "DID" is a methodology not the explanatory variable and the explanation that you given is wrong. your paper can be rejected only errors in this section 3 "Data". It seems it is not clear to you what is dependent and independent variables?
Response: Thank you very much for your meticulous reading. In Chapter 2, we constructed the difference-in-difference (DID) method, and the lowercase did is the constructed difference-in-difference variable, a dummy variable, as the core explanatory variable. The explanatory variable is urban innovation (innovation). We apologize for the misunderstanding you caused.
Comment 4: Please compare and contrast with your findings and methodologies with the current literatures.
Response: Our results differ from the literature [17], which states that the more a university is involved in the management of an engaged campus the slower a firm brings innovation to market. An analysis of Spanish science and technology parks in the literature [18] found that university participation in science and technology parks had a negative impact on tenants' innovation sales, but a positive impact on the number of patent applications. The reason for the different results is that Chinese university science and technology parks are mainly government-led and require innovative outputs, while foreign science and technology parks are mainly determined by the universities themselves and the outputs may not be announced or made public to the government. Therefore, foreign scholars lack data for empirical analysis and the lack of data is similar to the literature [8].
Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
An excellent piece of work – well done!
I have provided some feedback and I would appreciate if you could take my comments into consideration to further improve your excellent work!
In the introduction the topic of interest is well explained and the rationale behind the present study is shown. Relevant information is provided in the literature part following a structured and logical pattern which allows the purpose of the review to be clear to the reader. You may consider of splitting the introduction part into Introduction and then use headings/subheadings to give a better structure. In addition, the structure of the paper should be included to inform the reader about the Sections to follow.
In the methodology part, you have managed to present the technique followed based on Beck et al. (2010), however you could justify your choice - possibly in your literature part or in the methodology - with studies that have employed the same technique. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages associated to DID model could be acknowledged.
The data is presented in a complete and detailed way providing all the necessary information. In the results section you have employed fixed effects models – was this choice based on Hausman test? In addition, in the regression results eg Table 2, have any diagnostic tests being applied to the models? The analysis part is well organised, and you have applied with care and rigour appropriate techniques.
Although results are discussed you need to support and justify your findings with literature. Are your results in line with the findings from other studies? I missed the part of comparing/contrasting/agreeing to support and strengthen your results.
Conclusion presents the main highlights of the work, and you manage to provide useful and direct recommendations to stakeholders. However, there is a need the limitations of your work to be acknowledged and further research to be proposed.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable comments.
Comment 1: In the introduction the topic of interest is well explained and the rationale behind the present study is shown. Relevant information is provided in the literature part following a structured and logical pattern which allows the purpose of the review to be clear to the reader. You may consider of splitting the introduction part into Introduction and then use headings/subheadings to give a better structure. In addition, the structure of the paper should be included to inform the reader about the Sections to follow.
Response: We have made the changes as you suggested.
Comment 2: In the methodology part, you have managed to present the technique followed based on Beck et al. (2010), however you could justify your choice - possibly in your literature part or in the methodology - with studies that have employed the same technique. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages associated to DID model could be acknowledged.
Comment 3: The data is presented in a complete and detailed way providing all the necessary information. In the results section you have employed fixed effects models – was this choice based on Hausman test? In addition, in the regression results eg Table 2, have any diagnostic tests being applied to the models? The analysis part is well organised, and you have applied with care and rigour appropriate techniques.
The DID method allows the existence of unobservable factors, and allows unobservable factors to affect the decision of whether individuals accept intervention, thereby relaxing the conditions of policy evaluation, making the application of policy evaluation closer to economic reality, and therefore more widely used. The two differences of the DID method help to correct the endogeneity problem. This paper uses a fixed-effect model for estimation. The fixed-effect model is to solve the problem of controlling all unobservable factors that do not change with time, because if these factors are related to explanatory variables, it will cause estimation bias. The method of control is to eliminate all unobservable factors that do not change with time through fixed-effect conversion. Because these factors do not change with time, they are eliminated when subtracted. If these factors are not controlled, they will incorporate error terms (because they cannot be observed), and if they are related to explanatory variables, they will cause endogenous problems. Therefore, this paper adopts DID and fixed-effects model to estimate, which solves the problem of endogeneity.
In the manuscript, in order to overcome the problem of sample selection bias, we used the PSM-DID method to conduct a robustness test to ensure the credibility of the estimation results in this paper. China’s implementation of this policy is not entirely random. For example, this policy was first implemented in Beijing, and Beiing’s good economic environment and innovation conditions have led to a higher level of urban innovation than other cities. Therefore, non-stochastic policies may lead to biases in the estimated policy effects. To this end, we learn from the method of Böckerman and Ilmakunnas (2009), and use the PSM-DID method to further analyze the impact of this policy on urban innovation and reduce the possible biases that the DID method may bring.
The benefits of DID are obvious and we do not reflect them in the manuscript. However, we especially appreciate your suggestion to illustrate the disadvantages of adopting the DID approach in this paper, and we have added this aspect in Part VII. The literature mainly uses fixed effects to estimate the difference-in-difference model, while we also use the Hausman test and obtain the conclusion that it is better to use fixed effects estimation. After finally using fixed effects estimation, we performed a series of robustness tests to support the results we obtained.
Böckerman, P., & Ilmakunnas, P. (2009). Unemployment and self‐assessed health: evidence from panel data. Health economics, 18(2), 161-179.
Comment 4: Although results are discussed you need to support and justify your findings with literature. Are your results in line with the findings from other studies? I missed the part of comparing/contrasting/agreeing to support and strengthen your results.
Response: We added a literature comparison in lines 284 to 293.
Comment 5: Conclusion presents the main highlights of the work, and you manage to provide useful and direct recommendations to stakeholders. However, there is a need the limitations of your work to be acknowledged and further research to be proposed.
Response: The authors have added limitations and future research.
Although the impact of NUSTP on urban innovation can be assessed using the difference-in-difference approach, this result is also only an average effect. There are differences in the support for NUSTP in China, with different policy strengths for different universities, and the construction of difference-in-difference dummy variables may not be perfect either. Also, the impact of NUSTP on urban innovation changes significantly over time, and the use of fixed effects estimation may also be biased [28]. Future policy evaluation can use the method recommended in the literature [28] to determine whether TWFEDD can provide meaningful causal estimates. The method provided in the literature [29] can also be used to compare the results of fixed effects.
[28] Goodman-Bacon, A. (2021). Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing. Journal of Econometrics, 225(2), 254-277.
[29] Arkhangelsky, D., Athey, S., Hirshberg, D. A., Imbens, G. W., & Wager, S. (2021). Synthetic difference-in-differences. American Economic Review, 111(12), 4088-4118.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript was corrected. He is well prepared.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your recognition. Your comments have been instrumental in improving the quality of the manuscript.
