经济政策不确定性与创新——基于我国上市公司的实证分析

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Innovation:Evidence from Listed Companies in China

本文阐明了一个经济政策不确定性如何影响企业创新的理论机制,提出经济政策不确定性会对企业创新产生激励效应和选择效应。在此基础上,本文利用Baker et al.(2016)构建的中国经济政策不确定性指数和我国上市公司的创新数据来进行实证研究。结果表明,与经济政策不确定性抑制企业投资活动的已有结论不同,经济政策不确定性正向影响上市公司R&D投入和专利申请量。此外,这一经济政策不确定性与创新活动的关系受政府补贴、金融约束、企业所有权性质、行业特征等因素影响。这些发现与经济政策不确定性对企业创新产生的选择效应和激励效应相吻合。

Since 2008,the Chinese government has implemented a series of macroeconomic policies to avoid economic recession and to promote structural changes in the economy.While these policies have alleviated the short-run difficulties in the Chinese economy,they have increased economic policy uncertainty.However,China has experienced rapid increases in R&D and patent applications in the last 10 years,with innovation becoming the driving force for the continued high growth of the Chinese economy.These two observations raise the question of how economic policy uncertainty may impact innovation,of which little is known in the economic literature.It is thus important for both economic theory and business practice to study how economic policy uncertainty in China affects the innovative activities of domestic firms.In this paper,we first present a theoretical model to explore the impact of economic policy uncertainty on firm innovation.Building on Bloom(2007),we formulate the firm s problem to maximize the expected returns under economic policy uncertainty and analyze the firm s dynamic optimization problem using the Bellman equation.Based on the theoretical analysis,we propose that economic policy uncertainty impacts innovation through an“incentive effect”and a“selection effect”.Uncertainty means that there are future opportunities for firms to increase returns.As economic policy uncertainty rises,firms may achieve higher returns through innovative activities,which is what we call the“incentive effect”.Furthermore,in the presence of heterogeneous firms,which are constrained by the conditions of their operations(including their own characteristics and environmental factors),the firms will choose different innovation activities to maximize long-term returns in response to policy uncertainty.More capable firms may take advantage of the opportunities under uncertainty to engage in more innovative activities,whereas less capable firms may be unable to do so and may lose out.We call this the“selection effect”.We then conduct an empirical analysis using the China Economic Policy Uncertainty Index constructed by Baker et al.(2016)and the data on innovation by China s listed companies.We find that contrary to the previous result that economic policy uncertainty reduces firms investment activities,economic policy uncertainty positively impacts R&D inputs and patent application numbers by the listed companies.Moreover,this relationship between economic policy uncertainty and innovative activities is influenced by factors such as government subsidies,financial constraints,the nature of firm ownership and industry characteristics.Our results are consistent with the“incentive effect”and“selection effect”of economic policy uncertainty on firm innovation.This paper contributes to and broadens the research areas related to innovation and economic policy uncertainty.We offer a theoretical explanation for the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and innovation by proposing the“incentive effect”and“selection effect”of policy uncertainty on innovation.Our empirical study provides evidence for understanding this relationship in developing countries.Our results have implications for innovation policy.More generally,our results have the following policy implications.First,while we find that economic policy uncertainty positively impacts firms innovation inputs and outputs,such uncertainty may also have negative effects,such as reducing firms investment activities.Therefore,when the government adjusts economic policy to reduce economic fluctuation or to boost innovation,it will need to balance the various effects of policy uncertainty on different economic activities.Second,because economic policy uncertainty can have a selection effect on innovation,the government can encourage firms innovative activities by improving their economic environment.Finally,with appropriate economic policy,the selection effect of policy uncertainty can help improve resource allocation both within and across industries,with the aim of optimizing the industrial structure.