Mobile People, Fluid Technology: Population Mobility as Relational Governance in Inter-regional Patent Transactions

This dataset provides a city-pair panel for studying the relationship between intercity population mobility and patent transactions in China. It covers 290 prefecture-level and above cities from 2018 to 2023, with observations organized at the origin city–destination city–year level.
The dataset combines intercity population mobility data from Gaode Maps, patent transaction records from the China National Intellectual Property Administration, and city-level socioeconomic and geographic variables from statistical yearbooks, Gaode Maps API, and ArcGIS calculations. Key variables include population mobility intensity, patent transaction counts, geographic distance, administrative relationship, economic differences, innovation capacity, and other city-pair characteristics.
This dataset can be used to analyze how population mobility, social networks, and regional linkages affect interregional technology transfer, patent transactions, and innovation resource allocation in China.