电子商务发展与农村中小企业创新

E-commerce Development and Innovations of Township Enterprises

基于阿里巴巴电子商务发展指数、中国工商注册企业年检数据库和专利数据库以及中国企业创新创业调查数据库,利用网商的特性和各个行业外部融资依赖程度的差异,探讨了电子商务发展对于农村中小企业创新的影响及其内在机制。实证分析结果表明,电子商务发展水平越高,农村中小企业的创新能力越强。电子商务发展通过缓解资金拖欠问题降低了融资约束,显著减少了外部融资依赖程度更高的农村中小企业的应收账款,提升了其现金流的充裕性和创新产出。分所有制类型的研究结果表明,电子商务的作用在外部融资依赖程度较高的私有农村中小企业中更为显著;而对于融资约束较小的国有村域企业,电子商务的发展并未在创新方面对其产生显著影响。

Based on the Alibaba e-commerce development index,Annual Survey of Registered Industrial and Commercial Firms and the Patents dataset of China,and the Enterprise Survey on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in China,exploiting the characteristics of internet firms and different degrees of dependence on external finance for different industries,this paper explores the impact of e-commerce development on innovations of township enterprises and its underlying mechanisms.Empirical results demonstrate that higher e-commerce development is associated with better innovation capabilities of township enterprises.The development of e-commerce decreases the account receivables of small and private township firms and firms relying more on external finance,and increases these firms’cash flow and innovation output.On the basis of systematic micro-evidence,these findings reveal the underlying mechanisms about how the e-commerce development promotes innovations and have rich policy implications about how to provide a solid foundation for innovations with the use of the e-commerce platform.