新技术进步会阻碍传统技术创新吗--来自汽车产业的实证检验

Does the Development of New Technology Hinder the Innovation of Traditional Technology:An Empirical Analysis of the Automobile Industry

在新旧技术竞争过程中,传统企业会适时调整研发策略,以应对新技术进步对传统技术造成的冲击。然而,新技术对传统技术的影响究竟表现为创新替代效应还是创新互补效应,至今依然没有得到确切结论。以汽车产业为研究对象,比较传统燃油汽车和电动汽车两种新旧技术的发展路径,并结合产业生命周期理论提出汽车产业的三阶段演化模型。进一步基于1995—2021年省级专利数据和面板向量自回归模型,从产品创新和工艺创新两个维度实证检验各阶段电动汽车技术进步对传统汽车企业创新的影响。结果表明,在电动汽车产业的范式导入期(1995—2008年),新技术通过产品创新和工艺创新两方面促进传统技术发展;在电动汽车产业的范式构建期(2009—2021年),新技术依然对传统技术有显著推动作用,但仅通过工艺创新促进传统技术发展。

In the new round of technological and industrial revolution,the rapid development of emerging technologies has brought a non-negligible impact on traditional industries and forces incumbent enterprises to timely adjust their operation strategies.In the competition between traditional and new technologies,does the progress of emerging technologies encourage traditional manufacturers to increase the investment in innovation activities?Or does it stimulate the incumbents to switch technical routes and accelerate the decline of traditional industries?There is no consensus regarding whether the innovation substitution effects or innovation complementary effects play the dominant role.An in-depth investigation of the impact of new technology on traditional technology is beneficial,for it could help the central government to optimize the industrial layout from an overall perspective.This study chooses China's automobile industry as the research object and focuses on the relation between the innovation activities of traditional fuel vehicles and electric vehicles enterprises.Compared with the existing literature,the study has the contribution in three aspects.First,this study distinguishes the impacts of new technologies on conventional technologies at different stages of industrial life cycle rather than make a general analysis.Second,it further divides technological innovation into product innovation and process innovation.Product innovation improves the level of product differentiation,and process innovation helps to decrease product costs.Third,this study uses an econometric approach to empirically examine the relation between traditional and new technologies,and it is different from previous studies adopting the method of case studies.The paper is organized as follows.It first compares the development paths of traditional fuel vehicle and electric vehicle technologies,and puts forward a three-stage model of automobile industry evolution based on the theory of industrial life cycle.Then,hypotheses on the relationship between R&D activities of different automobile manufacturers at different development stages are proposed.Based on the panel data of Chinese provincial patents from 1995 to 2021,the study uses the panel vector autoregression(PVAR)method to empirically examine the effects of technological progress of electric vehicles on that of traditional fuel vehicles at various stages from two dimensions product innovation and process innovation.The results show that during the period of new technological paradigm introduction(1995-2008),the product innovation and process innovation of electric vehicles have positive effects on the progress of product innovation and process innovation of traditional vehicles respectively.During the period of technological paradigm construction(2009-2021),the process innovation of electric vehicles exerts a significant positive impact on that of traditional vehicles,whereas the production innovation of electric vehicles has no significant influence on that of traditional vehicles.The heterogeneity analysis of different regions shows that in provinces where the development of emerging industries lags behind,the promoting effect of new technologies on traditional technologies will be weakened to a certain extent.The conclusions of this study demonstrate an innovation complementary effect between the traditional and new technologies and point to several important implications for policymakers in fostering the development of automobile industry.First,the government should gradually reduce the support for electric vehicles and maintain the neutrality of the choice of technological route.Second,strategic cooperation and resource sharing among different kinds of automobile enterprises are encouraged,as traditional automobile enterprises have significant advantages in terms of vehicle integration technology while electric vehicle manufacturers perform better in lightweight and intelligent applications.Third,in consideration of the great pressure to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals for China's automobile industry,it is suggested to integrate the automobile enterprises’subsidy standards with the product performance in carbon emission reduction,integrate the requirements of relevant product carbon emission information in the selection and acceptance of R&D projects,and improve the fuel combustion efficiency and the application proportion of electric vehicles.