Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Internet, Education and Information Technology (IEIT 2025)

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Higher Education and Regional Innovation

——FE Analysis of China’s Provincial Data

Authors
Kexin Cai1, *
1School of Mathematics and Statistics, Shandong University, 180 Wenhua West Road, Weihai, Shandong, 264209, China
*Corresponding author. Email: ckx_sdu@163.com
Corresponding Author
Kexin Cai
Available Online 31 July 2025.
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-803-5_56How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Higher education; Urban-rural educational disparities; Regional innovation capacity; Fixed effects model; Panel data analysis
Abstract

With the growing interest in regional innovation capacity and higher education, educational equity (especially the urban-rural education gap) has emerged as a key factor affecting innovation output. Although studies have examined the impact of higher education on innovation, less attention has been paid to the moderating role of the urban-rural education gap. In this paper, we adopt a fixed-effects model to study the relationship between higher education and regional innovation capacity from a regional perspective using panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2022, focusing on the moderating role of the urban-rural education gap. The results show that higher education has a significant positive impact on regional innovation capacity, especially in regions with concentrated educational resources. However, the urban-rural education gap significantly weakens this impact, especially in rural areas where resources are scarce.

Further analyses show that increased financial investment in education and higher tertiary education intensity have a significant contribution to innovation. Meanwhile, the moderating effect of the urban-rural education gap is heterogeneous across regions. This paper ensures the reliability of the results through endogeneity and robustness tests. This study provides new empirical evidence and highlights the need to address the urban-rural education gap. Policymakers should ensure equitable distribution of educational resources, especially in less developed regions, to promote innovation and sustainable development.

Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Internet, Education and Information Technology (IEIT 2025)
Series
Atlantis Highlights in Social Sciences, Education and Humanities
Publication Date
31 July 2025
ISBN
978-94-6463-803-5
ISSN
2667-128X
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-803-5_56How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Kexin Cai
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/07/31
TI  - Higher Education and Regional Innovation
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Internet, Education and Information Technology (IEIT 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 601
EP  - 610
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-803-5_56
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-803-5_56
ID  - Cai2025
ER  -