Cultural diversity and regional innovation: Evidence from China

Abstract

The cultural diversity brought by migrants has attracted widespread interest in recent years. This paper investigates the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation by constructing panel data of provincial migrant cultural diversity and combining them with invention applications data from China's State Intellectual Property Office. The empirical results show that the migrant cultural diversity, measured by migrant's hukou and dialect respectively, has a positive impact on regional innovation. The effect still holds after a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Furthermore, the further analysis implies that the effects of the migrant cultural diversity in workers aged from 30 to 50, engaged in an innovative occupation, working in high market-competitiveness or inclusive provinces are more pronounced. Our study supplements the current research on the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation.