Abstract The knowledge spillover is an important research proposition which put forward by the endogenous growth theory, and many scholars have studied this question extensively. Even today, it is still a hot issue in the areas of economics and geography. In geography realm, regional interaction is a classic topic, regional spillover as spatial interaction is the main type of regional interaction in the new era, for it is the power force of new economy. In recent years, China has absorbed a large number of Multi-National Corporation R&D investments, and China has become the primary location of Multi-National Corporation's foreign R&D investment. In this paper, we study inter-regional knowledge spillovers of foreign R&D and its spatial difference in China based on provinces panel data. Our main concerns are whether there exist inter-regional knowledge spillovers of foreign R&D in China? If the answer is yes, then for the intra-regional knowledge spillovers and inter-regional knowledge spillovers from foreign R&D, which is more important to the region? Further, do these spillovers present obvious regional differences? And how do they spillover to each other between the different regions? With the stochastic frontier analysis method and regional knowledge spillover model, we find that the foreign R&D of one province not only spillover knowledge to this province, but also there exist positive spillovers of foreign R&D between neighbor provinces in China. The eastern provinces both benefit from their central and eastern neighbors' foreign R&D activities, but the central and western provinces only obtain spillovers from foreign R&D of neighbors which in the same region as this province. The further research shows that, the provinces in eastern, central and western regions of China have formed closed spatial contact between each other, and there exist significant mutual spillovers of foreign R&D between provinces in the same region.
2013, Vol. 28 
