政府补助对研发投资能发挥长期激励吗?——跨期效应的检验

Can Government Subsidies Provide Long-term Incentives for Research and Development Investment? An Inter-temporal Effect Test

为验证政府补助对研发投资增长的跨期影响,以2008~201 9年沪深A股上市公司为对象,实证分析发现,政府补助能够推动当期研发投资增长,但对滞后一期的研发投资增长产生抑制作用,不能形成研发投资增长的惯性。条件跨期效应检验发现,在研发强度高和政府补助多的企业中政府补助的跨期抑制作用显著,政府补助的同期促进效应随着补助提高而降低,跨期抑制效应随着补助和研发提高而加剧;从代理治理的角度来看,高管职业忧虑低、审计质量高以及市场竞争激烈减弱了政府补助对研发投资增长的跨期抑制效应;从财务盈余的角度来看,现金持有高和经营现金流充裕减弱了政府补助对研发投资增长的跨期抑制效应。进一步研究发现,政府补助对研发投资存在同期跟随的特征,验证了政府补助是临时性的而非长久之计,需要推动企业形成研发投资增长惯性。

This paper analyzes the inter-temporal impact of government subsidies on the growth of research and development investment.Taking the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2019 as the research topic,our empirical analysis finds that government subsidies can promote the growth of research and development investment in the current period,but it has a restraining effect on the growth of research and development investment that lags behind the first period,thus failing to promote continued research and development investment growth.The conditional inter-temporal effect test finds that the inter-temporal restrainting effect of government subsidies is significant for companies with higher research and development intensity and government subsidies.The contemporaneous promotion effect of government subsidies decreases as subsidies increasei while the inter-temporal restraining effect becomes stronger as subsidies for research and development increases.From the perspective of agency governance,low professional worries of executives,high audit quality,and fierce market competition will weaken the inter-temporal restraining effect of government subsidies on the growth of research and development investment;from the perspective of financial surplus,high cash holdings and abundant operating cash flow will also weaken the inter-temporal restraining effect of government subsidies on the growth of research and development investment.Furthermore,we find that government subsidies simultaneously follow research and development investment,which verifies the claim that government subsidies have temporary rather than long-term incentives,and it is necessary to promote enterprises to develop research and development investment growth inertia.