Asian Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2022, the gravity model is used to measure the flow of R&D factors, the stochastic frontier function is used to measure the regional innovation efficiency, and the SBM model considering undesirable output super efficiency is used to measure the green total factor productivity.The spatial Durbin model is used to empirically test the impact of R&D factor flow on high-quality economic development and its spatial spillover effect, and further test the mediating effect of regional innovation efficiency in the process of R&D factor flow promoting high-quality economic development. On this basis, we deeply explore its heterogeneous effects in the eastern, central and western regions. The results show that the flow of R&D factors in China effectively promotes the high-quality development of the economy, and the flow of R&D capital plays a more obvious role in promoting the high-quality development of the economy. R&D personnel flow plays a significant direct and indirect role in high-quality economic development, while R&D capital flow has a significant spatial spillover effect in the process of promoting high-quality economic development. R&D factor flow promotes high-quality economic development by improving regional innovation efficiency; the flow of R&D capital in the east and the flow of R&D personnel in the west have significant advantages.The impact of R&D capital in the eastern region is more significant, while the western region is mainly concentrated in R&D personnel. Based on this, it is proposed to effectively promote the flow of R&D factors, improve the efficiency of regional innovation, improve the policy system, guide the cross-regional flow of R&D factors, adopt regional differentiation policies. Exploring this issue will help provide empirical evidence for the high-quality development of developing countries.