中国企业的创新收益率测算——基于“中国企业—劳动力匹配调查”的经验证据

The Returns to Innovation of Chinese Firms: Based on Empirical Evidence from the “China Employer-Employee Survey”

在中国创新规模爆炸式增长的前提下,创新收益率提高对于长期经济增长和生产率提升的重要性日益凸显。在系统梳理现有文献的基础上,本文从"创新投入—创新产出—创新作用"的整体出发,就现阶段中国企业创新的直接收益率、经济收益率进行多维度、稳健的实证检验。运用2018年"中国企业—劳动力匹配调查"(CEES)数据,实证研究发现:与创新规模爆炸式增长相比,中国企业的创新结构不合理问题更为突出。将R&D资本对于不同种类专利数量、新产品销售额占比的弹性系数作为衡量指标,回归结果表明,中国企业的创新直接收益率仅为发达国家的1/4左右,创新投入效率不高、转化能力不强是造成创新直接收益率不高的重要原因。以有效专利数量对于生产率的弹性系数作为衡量指标,估计结果发现,与发达国家相比,有效专利增长对于劳动生产率、TFP的促进效应明显偏弱,创新质量不高已成为制约创新经济收益率提升的重要原因。进一步检验发现,管理效率、企业家转型和企业内部资源配置能力是制约当前中国企业创新收益率提升的重要因素。

Considering the rapidly increasing of innovation measures,and China’s macro economy entering into the stage of middle and high income countries,the improvement of returns to innovation has become increasingly important for China’s long-term economic growth and productivity improvement.Due to the lack of high-quality innovation data,the existing papers still know little about the returns to innovation in Chinese firms.Following the methods of existing papers from developed countries,this paper uses the innovation function to conduct a multi-dimensional framework about estimating the returns to innovation for Chinese firms.Using the unique dataset,the 2018 China Employer-Employee Survey(CEES),this paper examines the returns to innovation both from innovation input and output based measures.The empirical findings of this paper are as follows.First,under the apparent prosperity of the explosive growth of innovation scale,the unreasonable innovation structure of Chinese firms is more prominent.Currently,all kinds of innovation activities of Chinese firms are close to the average level of OECD countries.However,the innovation quality of Chinese firms has been at a"low level"for a long time.Specifically,the number of invention patent applications is low,the conversion rate of patents from application to approval is very slow,especially lacking of ones which are new to domestic or global markets.Second,taking the elasticity coefficient of R&D capital to all kinds of patent variables as measures,the results show that returns to innovation measured by the average patents per R&D capital is only about a quarter of that in developed countries.Further analyses find that,the low returns to innovation measured by the average patents per R&D capital in China is mainly due to low R&D investment efficiency and poor technology transformation.Such structural barriers are difficult to be eliminated in the short term,and the"low level"of returns to innovation may exist for a long time.Similarly,the semi-elasticity estimation on the effects of R&D capital on types of new products show that,the estimates of R&D capital on firm-level products which are new to domestic or global markets are significantly biased downward,and this phenomenon consists over time.This shows that,the role of innovation investment on R&D outputs in Chinese firms is poorer than that in developed countries.Therefore,returns to innovation measured by patents and new products should be improved.Third,taking the elasticity estimates of patents on labor productivity or total factor productivity(TFP)as dependent variables,the regression results show that,in comparison with developed countries,although the effects of effective patent on labor productivity and TFP in China are both significantly positive,these estimates are much weaker.These mean that,on average,Chinese firms have low innovation quality,which has become an important reason to restrict the improvement of the returns to innovation.Fourth,further empirical examinations show that,better management,higher innovation spirits,stronger entrepreneurship and resource allocation capacity are all important factors to improve the innovation quality of Chinese firms.The policy suggestions are as follows.Chinese government should take some policies to increase innovation quality immediately.At first,Chinese government should put forward more clear innovation quality evaluation indicators to stimulate firms to input more R&D resources to improve returns to innovation.Simultaneously,the funding policy of R&D subsidy should be reformed,in order to provide R&D subsidies to firms mainly based on their R&D efficiency rather than R&D inputs and outputs goals.Secondly,Chinese government should inhibit firms from increasing R&D inputs and outputs only to acquire R&D subsidies or funding of high-tech enterprises(HTE).Thirdly,considering the positive relationship between firm-level innovation resources and innovation quality,Chinese government should put forward more policies to increase entrepreneurs’innovation spirits,and encourage their CEOs to participate in management training.Based on these policies,the management and entrepreneurship at Chinese firms can be effectively improved,which will help them to increase R&D quality and innovation performance.