技术创新与新创企业生产率——来自VC/PE支持企业的证据

Technological Innovation and Firm Productivity: Evidence from VC /PE Backed Firms

现代经济中,国家的竞争力取决于创建高生产率的创业企业,这些企业能够创造新产品和服务、财富以及新的工作岗位。本文利用2007—2011年PE/VC支持的新创企业数据实证分析了技术创新与企业生产率的关系,我们采用LP方法估计了新创企业的生产率,在充分控制企业异质性及可能的内生性后,研究发现:(1)研发投入对企业生产率具有显著的正向影响关系,且存在滞后效应;(2)高新技术行业的研发投入弹性系数明显高于非高新技术行业;(3)研发投入对不同生产率水平企业生产率的贡献具有明显差异。此外,企业规模和资产负债率均对新创企业生产率具有显著的负向影响,盈利能力和行业需求的增长有利于新创企业生产率的提升。

Startup companies or startups can create new products,services,wealth and jobs.How to foster startups＇ productivity as a way to ensure their survival and economic growth has been a major issue for both managers and policy makers.Innovation is one of key determinants for a firm＇s productivity growth.Most studies have focused on the relationship between innovation and productivity for established firms.Startups are different from established firms.because they are highly engaged in innovation activities and face high uncertainty （Venkataraman,1997）.The influence of key factors of technological innovation on a startup＇s productivity remains unexplored.In order to identify these factors,we construct a new database by matching firm-level GEM （Growth Enterprise Markets） and SME （Small and medium-sized enterprises） data to VC/PE investment events in CVSource,WIND and Zdatabase for the period 2007-2011.To estimate the firm-level TFP,Levinsohn and Petrin＇s （2003） semi-parametric approach is chosen.First,we adopted a dynamic panel model to estimate the relationship between R＆D and productivity using the whole sample.Second,we performed a number of robustness checks on our results.We used the ‘ system GMM＇ estimator to control endogeneity.We also considered other proxies for innovation and productivity,and explored whether the results change.We split the sample into high-tech industry and not high-tech industry.Furthermore,we used a panel data quantile regression approach to analyze the influence of innovation on productivity across the productivity distribution.The final section provides a summary of the analysis results.The main empirical findings can be summarized as follows：（1） the one-period-lagged R＆D has significantly impact on firm productivity; （2） high-tech firms have higher elastic coefficient of R＆D; （3） R＆D is important for higher-productivity firms and lower-productivity firms.We also find evidence that firms with high leverage have lower expected productivity.The size of a startup is found to have a greater negative impact on its productivity.The industry demand and profitability have significantly positive influence on a firm＇s productivity.Such findings are robust for various econometric methods.To sum up,this study considerably extends our understanding of the impact of technological innovation to the productivity of VC/PE backed startups.From a policy perspective,this study reveals that technological innovation is a valid tool for improving the productivity of startups and indirectly increases the efficiency of the economic system.